How do we know that there is a salty ocean underneath Europa’s icy surface?

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Europa is one of Jupiter’s moons and apparently has a “water-ice crust”, “salty ocean of liquid water”, and a “rocky sea floor”. How could we know this much information in great detail from a telescope?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

There are mutliple indicators, but a big one is the surface. There are no craters. Every other celestial body we know of that doesn’t have an atmosphere (aside from the other ones we also think have liquid oceans) are covered in craters. This implies that something is renewing the surface regularly, with liquid flowing from the warmer interior to the surface and freezing there. On a rocky body, this liquid would be molten rock of some kind. Since Europa is an icy body, that liquid has to be molten ice: water.

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