Why is europa the brightest

Table salt and another kind of salt called carbonates dimmed the post-radiation glow. But ice with Epsom salt mixed in glowed brighter. If the lab experiments hold true, then the camera could map dark regions as rich in sodium, and bright areas as rich in magnesium. Europa is probably about 4. Theresa Machemer is a freelance writer based in Washington DC.

Her work has also appeared in National Geographic and SciShow. Our own moon glows in the dark, reflecting the light of the sun. Jupiter is far away from here, but our star still illuminates the planet and its many moons , including the moon Europa. But Europa is different from the others. According to new research, Europa might glow even on its night side, producing an ethereal glimmer without the help of the sun.

The high-energy particles constantly bombard Europa, a world slightly smaller than our moon, with a wispy atmosphere. At the touch of radiation, the simulated surface shone. Read: A flurry of tiny moons around Jupiter. Scientists will get a chance to look for the real thing in this decade. If Europa's ocean exists, the tidal heating could also lead to volcanic or hydrothermal activity on the seafloor, supplying nutrients that could make the ocean suitable for living things.

Those four moons are likely about the same age as the rest of the solar system — about 4. Each planet in the inner solar system is less dense than their inner neighbor — Mars is less dense than Earth, which is less dense than Venus, which is less dense than Mercury. The Galilean moons follow the same principle, being less dense the farther they are from Jupiter.

The reduced density at greater distances is likely due to temperature: denser, rocky, and metal material condenses out first, close to Jupiter or the Sun, while lighter-weight icy material only condenses out at larger distances where it is colder. Distance from Jupiter also determines how much tidal heating the Galilean satellites experience — Io, closest to Jupiter, is heated so much that it is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, and it likely long ago drove off any water it had when it formed.

Europa has a layer of ice and water on top of a rocky and metal interior, while Ganymede and Callisto actually have higher proportions of water ice and so lower densities. Like our planet, Europa is thought to have an iron core, a rocky mantle, and an ocean of salty water. While evidence for an internal ocean is strong, its presence awaits confirmation by a future mission.

All along Europa's many fractures, and in splotchy patterns across its surface, is a reddish-brown material whose composition is not known for certain, but likely contains salts and sulfur compounds that have been mixed with the water ice and modified by radiation.

This surface composition may hold clues to the moon's potential as a habitable world. Some of these fractures have built up into ridges hundreds of meters tall, while others appear to have pulled apart into wide bands of multiple parallel fractures.

Galileo also found regions called "chaos terrain," where broken, blocky landscapes were covered in mysterious reddish material. In , scientists studying Galileo data proposed that chaos terrains could be places where the surface collapsed above lens-shaped lakes embedded within the ice. Europa has only a tenuous atmosphere of oxygen, but in , NASA announced that researchers using the Hubble Space Telescope found evidence that Europa might be actively venting water into space.

This would mean the moon is geologically active in the present day. One of the most important measurements made by the Galileo mission showed how Jupiter's magnetic field was disrupted in the space around Europa. The measurement strongly implied that a special type of magnetic field is being created induced within Europa by a deep layer of some electrically conductive fluid beneath the surface.

Based on Europa's icy composition, scientists think the most likely material to create this magnetic signature is a global ocean of salty water, and this magnetic field result is still the best evidence we have for the existence of an ocean on Europa. Resource Packages. A 3D model of Jupiter's moon Europa, an icy moon with a hidden subsurface ocean.