Searching for liquid water in Europa by using surface observatories
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 1, 2026

Surface Mapping of Earth-like Exoplanets using Single Point Light Curves
Published on: May 10, 2020
Krishan K Khurana1, Margaret G Kivelson, Christopher T Russell
1Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA. kkhurana@igpp.ucla.edu
Abstract:
Liquid water, as far as we know, is an indispensable ingredient of life. Therefore, locating reservoirs of liquid water in extraterrestrial bodies is a necessary prerequisite to searching for life. Recent geological and geophysical observations from the Galileo spacecraft, though not unambiguous, hint at the possibility of a subsurface ocean in the Jovian moon Europa. After summarizing present evidence for liquid water in Europa, we show that electromagnetic and seismic observations made from as few as two surface observatories comprising a magnetometer and a seismometer offer the best hope of unambiguous characterization of the three-dimensional structure of the ocean and the deeper interior of this icy moon. The observatories would also help us infer the composition of the icy crust and the ocean water.
Related Concept Videos
States of Water
Water freezes when the intermolecular forces are greater than the kinetic energy. Unlike most other substances, water is less dense in its solid state than in its liquid state. This is because each water molecule can form...
The Water Cycle
Water and Mineral Acquisition
Liquid–Solid Solutions
Testing Water Quality
Surface Tension of Fluid
Surface tension varies with...

