Print this page

Have a news item you would like featured? Fill out the request here (UW NetID Restricted).


Astronomers May Have Just Solved a Salty Mystery at Jupiter's Most Famous Moon | Inverse

2023-02-22 00:00:00

NASA's Galileo spacecraft took an image of Jupiter's moon Europa in the summer of 2001. In the colorized version there can be seen strange red streaks, appearing almost like the capillaries feeding a giant eyeball. Those streaks proved to be something of a mystery: Scientists assumed it was a mixture of sodium chloride salts of some sort with water ice, but the chemical signature of these streaks in spectrometer readings don't match those of any known salts on Earth -- the salts on Europa appear to contain more water. Baptiste Journaux, acting assistant professor of Earth and space sciences at the UW, is quoted.

Source: Full Story