Elon Musk just exposed new discoveries in Jupiter's moon Europa Europa Jupiter's icy
moon is an ocean World encased beneath a thick crust of ice where snow floats upward in recent
discovery shows that an underwater snow could be forming on Jupiter's moon Europa what will be
the implication of this to the incoming Europa Clipper Mission let's find out while Elon Musk
is updating us all hello everyone and welcome back to Elon Musk Evolution where we bring you
the most recent news about Elon Musk and his multi-billion dollar companies but before we
begin make sure you subscribe to our Channel and click the Bell icon so you don't miss out on any
of our amazing videos and let's dive in according to musk since its Discovery scientists have been
particularly interested in Europa the sixth closest of Jupiter's Galilee and moons since
it may have the finest conditions for life it is challenging to assess whether the planet could
be a host of living organisms due to its ice shell with implications that could Aid NASA and
better preparing for its upcoming Europa Clipper Mission researchers from the University of Texas
at Austin now think that they've uncovered what conditions might exist beneath europa's ice sheet
but what is underwater snow under europa's thick coating of ice according to researchers at the
University of Texas at Austin is a layer of what they compare to underwater snow the researchers
hypothesize that this strange development which has been observed beneath ice shelves
on Earth also occurs beneath the ice shelves of Europa lead author and graduate student Natalie
wolfenbarger claims that it is extremely difficult to make underwater snow wolfenbarger stated that
melting actually occurs at the beginning of the process water that is less thick than ocean water
is created when deeper ice melts the ice ocean interface wants it to float upward because it is
less dense wolfenbarger explains that the water becomes super cooled because the Melt water is
moving from a deeper depth or higher pressure to a shallower depth or lower pressure which
essentially means that even though the temperature and pressure are such that the Melt water should
freeze it remains a liquid when the correct conditions exist ice crystals begin to grow in
supercooled water and eventually float and gather beneath the ice shell according to wolfenbarger
this produces a layer of underwater snow that is more pure than other ice layers enabling
the retrieval of a more pristine specimen for later study the purity of the underwater snow
also shows that the waters on Europa may not be as salty as originally thought which may indicate
higher chances of discovering life according to new study the underwater snow originates in the
global ocean and Rises through the water to cling to submerged Ravines and inverted ice
Summits the formation of europa's ice shell may be influenced by the same phenomena that
occurs beneath ice shelves on Earth the discovery which was made on Monday and was published in the
journal astrobiology showed that europa's ice shell may not be as salty as initially believed
musk stated it is essential for engineers building NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft
which is getting ready to launch to Europa in October 2024 to comprehend the salt content of
the ice crust ice penetrating radar will be used by Europa Clipper to peer inside the Moon crust
and evaluate whether or not its ocean would be suitable for supporting life predictions about
the Shell's composition are crucial because any salt could affect how deep the radar can pierce it
scientists may be able to learn more about europa's ocean its salinity and its capacity
to support life by using the ice Shell's Clues the ice shell of Europa is between 10 and 15.5
miles thick and it is thought to be perched on top of the ocean that is between 40 and 90
miles deep according to lead study author Natalie wolfenbarger a doctoral student researcher at the
University of Texas Institute for geophysics in the UT Jackson School of geosciences when we are
exploring Europa we are interested in the salinity and composition of the ocean because that's one
of the things that will govern its potential habitability or even the type of life that
might live there wolfenbarger also participates in the Europa Clipper science team as an Affiliated
graduate student the ice piercing radar for the spacecraft is being developed by scientists at
the University of Texas Austin previous Studies have revealed that the ocean closest to europa's
Shell resembles the water beneath Antarctic Ice shelves in terms of temperature pressure
and salinity the due processes by which water on Earth freezes beneath ice shelves were examined
by the researcher conjulation ice and phrasal ice how are they different while phrasal ice drifts
up through extremely cold salt water before resting beneath the ice shelf conjulation ice
actually forms from below the ice shelf these two types produce ice that is less saline than
seawater and when the researchers extrapolated their findings to the age and size of europa's
ice shell they found that salt water was even less salty musk explained the most prevalent ice type
on Europa may be phrasalized which would make the ice shell purer than previously thought the
amount of salt and salt water that is preserved by phrasal ice is quite minimal the strength ice
tectonics and heat transport through the ice shell can all be influenced by the purity of the ice
according to study co-author Donald Blankenship a senior research scientist at the University
of Texas Institute for geophysics we can utilize Earth to evaluate europa's habitability quantify
the exchange of pollutants between the ice and ocean and figure out where water is in
the ice he is the head of the ice penetrating radar experiment aboard Europa Club birth the
discovery might imply that Earth can be used as a model to comprehend the habitability of Europa
according to musk there were two mechanisms from the study of the Antarctic shelves wolfenbarger
and colleagues compared sea ice on our planet to Europa in order to understand more about the
activities that may be taking place beneath the surface of the Moon there are two potential Ways
by which ice shelves in the polar regions of Earth formed from the bottom up one is conjulation in
which ice solidifies at the point where it meets the water directly below phrasal ice
which develops as millimeter-sized randomly formed crystals amid Columns of supercooled
water is the second mechanism turbulent currents prevent these columns from entirely freezing these
crystals are propelled forward by buoyant forces and come to rest on the underside of the ice where
they resemble underwater snow by comparing various ice cores taken from Antarctica's ice shelves the
researchers were able to analyze the contributions of each mechanism to the production of ice they
claim that the temperature pressure and salinity of europa's ice sheet are closely analogous to
their those seen in this environment some of these samples were taken from places where the
ice is thinner like riffs and Glacier tongues others came from old ice shells which can be
as thick as several kilometers according to their analysis conjulation predominated the process of
older ice gradually thickening this procedure would be triggered by europa's solid interior
gradually cooling phrasal ice on the other hand is more prone to build up in places where the ice
thins such as small scale riffs and fractures or warmer areas which are frequently found at
lower latitudes on Europa tidal heating caused by Jupiter's gravitational pull also warms and thins
down vast portions of the ice shell according to Steve Vance a research scientist at NASA's
jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena California this publication is bringing up a whole new batch
of ideas for thinking about ocean worlds and how they work Vance was not involved in the work and
said it lays the stage for how we may prepare for Europa Clippers examination of the ice at
the spacecraft assembly facility at NASA's jet propulsion laboratory Works currently
being done on the Europa Clipper spacecraft's core in the clean room where NASA Crews have
assembled spacecraft like Galileo Cassini and the Mars rovers the core which is 10 feet tall
and 5 feet wide has taken Center Stage by the end of the year the spacecraft will have both
the flight hardware and the scientific equipment fitted and the run-up to launch Engineers will
conduct a number of tests on the spacecraft April 2030 will see the arrival of Europa Clipper at the
yovian moon the spacecraft will gradually descend from an altitude of 1 700 miles or about 2735
kilometers to only 16 miles or 25 kilometers above the surface of Europa over the course of
the almost 50 planned flybys and that's it for today's video guys we sincerely hope you enjoyed
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