Table salt may be hiding in Europa’s underground sea
The ocean of Jupiter’s icy moon may be more similar to Earth’s than expected
What flavors our food may also season the sea of Jupiter’s moon Europa.
Sulfate salts were thought to lurk in the watery ocean under the moon’s icy crust. But data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggest that common table salt dominates the sea’s chemistry, researchers report June 12 in Science Advances.
“This could mean that the ocean chemistry is more similar to what we’re used to on Earth and what we see at Enceladus, which is an ocean moon of Saturn,” says Samantha Trumbo, a graduate student in planetary sciences at Caltech.