Liquid water on Europa
From Wikiversity
Jupiter's moon Europa probably contains liquid water. The laws of electromagnistism stipulate that a varing magnetic field cause an induced magnetic field if the body withing the original magnetic field is conductive. Europa is within Jupiter's magnetic field and the Galileo probe's mesuments of Europa's induced magnetic field suggets it has a global conductive layer near the icy surface. The best possibility to explain this would be a below surface salty ocean. [1]
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[edit] Discovery
- Discovered by: G. Galilei
Galileo Galilei, the person who discovered Europa, one of Jupiter's moons
- S. Marius
- Discovery date: January 7, 1610
[edit] Orbital characteristics
- Epoch January 8, 2004
- Periapsis: 664862 km
- Apoapsis: 676938 km
- Mean radius of orbit: 670,900 km
- Eccentricity: 0.009
- Orbital period: 3.551181 d
- Avg. orbital speed: 13.740 km/s
- Inclination: 0.470° (to Jupiter's equator)
- Satellite of: Jupiter
[edit] Physical characteristics
- Mean radius: 1,569 km (0.245 Earths)
- Surface area: 3.09×107 km² (0.061 Earths)
- Volume: 1.593×1010 km³ (0.015 Earths)
- Mass: 4.80×1022 kg (0.008 Earths)
- Mean density: 3.01 g/cm³
- Equatorial surface gravity: 1.314 m/s² (0.134 g)
- Escape velocity: 2.025 km/s
- Rotation period: Synchronous
- Axial tilt: 0.1°
- Albedo: 0.67 ± 0.03
- Surface temp: 50 K~125K
- Apparent magnitude: 5.29 (opposition)
[edit] Atmosphere
- Surface pressure: 1 µPa
