Abstract
The Jovian satellite Europa is a rocky object about the size of Earth’s Moon, and it has an outer water/water-ice zone some 100 to 200 km thick. Images from the Galileo spacecraft show a surface with a complex history involving tectonic deformation, impact cratering, and extrusions of ice-rich materials onto the surface by cryovolcanic processes. Differences in impact crater distributions suggest that some areas have been resurfaced more recently than others; Europa could experience current cryovolcanic activity. Some regions of the lithosphere have been fractured, with icy crustal plates separated and rotated into new positions. The size of these plates suggests that the depth to liquid or mobile ice was only a few kilometers at the time of disruption. The presence of H2O, possibly in a liquid state, inferred heating in the interior, and the probable presence of organic compounds make Europa a high priority for exobiologic exploration.
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