Scientists have found that Jupiter's moon could be home to more pockets of liquid water than previously thought, meaning that it's a better candidate for alien life.
A team of scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that the icy shell of the moon could be more porous than thought.
The double ridge features that mimic the ice sheet of Greenland are the smoking gun. The theory is that if the ridges were formed the same way they were in Greenland, there should be more water on the Jovian moon.
The observation was a happy accident.
One of my colleagues on the paper is a planetary scientist and he showed a picture of the double ridges on the surface.
He said that he had seen a similar feature in his data from Earth while working on a different project.
The moon's ridges have the same height and distance as in Greenland, and the theory appears to be correct.
In the case of Greenland, pressurized liquid from below forces the ice sheets upward, causing a crest of two peaks with pockets of water underneath.
It is possible that the icy shell could have pockets of liquid water.
Culberg said that shallow water pockets must have been very common in the ice shell.
We will not be able to test the theory without more direct observations. NASA is planning to launch a probe to the icy moon called Europa Clipper in 2024, with a special radar on board that can peek beneath its mysterious icy shell.
The chances of finding alien life on Jupiter just shot up.
There is a rare triple transit from Jupiter.
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