TapTechNews May 17th news, NASA recently published relevant research in the journal JGR Planets, based on the photos of Europa taken by the Juno on September 29, 2022, supporting the theory that the ice shells at the north and south poles of Europa no longer exist.
The Juno mainly takes pictures through the JunoCam. On September 29, 2022, the Juno flew over Europa and took 4 pictures of this icy satellite at a height of 355 kilometers (220 miles).
During the flyby, the Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) on the Juno also assisted in taking an image of Europa's night scene. The SRU is mainly used for imaging faint stars.
The SRU discovered an unusual landform, nicknamed The Platypus because of its shape. Formally, it is called a chaotic terrain - a jumbled terrain composed of ice blocks, ridges, humps, and reddish-brown spots. Planetary scientists suspect that these areas may be areas where salty liquids seep into the surface and partially melt the ice shell.
The Platypus is very huge, with an area of 37 kilometers by 67 kilometers (23 miles by 42 miles). Since the icy surface of Europa tends to smooth out in a very short geological time span, erasing surface features such as craters, so The Platypus is one of the youngest features on the Europa satellite.
50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the Platypus, there may be even more exciting landforms: a set of double ridges flanked by dark spots on the surface. This kind of landform has appeared elsewhere on Europa before and is said to be the source of water vapor plumes that jet into space to a height of up to 200 kilometers (120 miles).
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