\u201cWhen we\u2019re exploring Europa, we\u2019re interested in the salinity and composition of the ocean, because that\u2019s one of the things that will govern its potential habitability or even the type of life that might live there,\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
said lead author Natalie Wolfenbarger, a graduate student researcher at the University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n A still from a NASA animation showing artists cut-away view of Europa. Credit: NASA\/JPL<\/p><\/div>\n Underwater snow is a great deal purer than other forms of ice. So Europa\u2019s ice shell could be much less salty than previously thought.<\/p>\n That\u2019s important for mission scientists developing NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper spacecraft. Clipper will use radar to look through the ice shell to find out if Europa\u2019s ocean could be hospitable to life.<\/p>\n Salt trapped in the ice can affect what and how deep the radar will see into the ice shell, so predicting what the ice is made of will help scientists make sense of the data.<\/p>\n Identifying what sort of ice makes up Europa\u2019s shell will also help unravel the salinity and habitability of its ocean.<\/p>\n Europa, about the size of the Earth\u2019s moon, is encased in a miles-thick ice shell. Beneath lies a global ocean.<\/p>\n Earlier studies suggest that the temperature, pressure, and salinity of Europa\u2019s ocean closest to the ice is comparable to what is found beneath an ice shelf in Antarctica.<\/p>\n The new study began with that knowledge to investigate the two distinct ways that water freezes under ice shelves, congelation ice and frazil ice.<\/p>\nPure Underwater Snow<\/h2>\n
![\"europa\"](\"https:\/\/techfragments.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/europa-section-nasa.jpg\")
Congelation Ice vs Frazil Ice<\/h2>\n