Europa as a World

two competing models of Europa's interior

Europa has:

• a fairly pure ice crust some 80 to 170 km thick

• a denser deep interior

• a possible liquid ocean unter the ice crust, kept liquid by tidal heating by Jupiter and its other moons

• a tenuous oxygen atmosphere, produced by charged particles in Jupiter's magnetic field hitting the icy surface and knocking atoms of water molecules off the surface

Europa's surface has very few impact craters, implying that its surface is fairly young.  The ice at the surface has a fluffy, or porous, texture.   Sublimation erosion (erosion by the sublimation of water and other volatiles into space) is probably responsible.

Sulfur dioxide has been detected on the surface; it probably was ejected by Io's sulfur geysers.

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