Is It True That It Snows Upside Down on Jupiter’s Moon Europa?

Space is a pretty crazy place.

Transcript

00:00Space can be a pretty wild place and while planets like Jupiter might have

00:07constant red-eye storms that have been raging for as long as mankind is known,

00:11its moons like Europa are just as nuts. For years scientists thought the Europa

00:15was a massive ball of ice. Now however they believe it has more of an ice shell.

00:19Underneath there is a massive highly salinated ocean, likely 40 to 100 miles

00:23deep, meaning at only a quarter of the size it has around twice the water of

00:27Earth. But now according to a new study, below that ice there are likely snow

00:31storms that form underwater with snow that falls upside down. Scientists took a

00:35look at Antarctica's ice sheets to understand how Europa's ice shell may

00:39have formed. Underneath ice in Antarctica what's called frazzled ice often forms

00:43or salty coagulated ice that builds up underneath the surface. But it's often

00:46much less salty than the sea ice around it, meaning Europa's ice crust likely is

00:50as well. Experts believe that Europa's ice sheet is 10 to 15 miles thick, meaning

00:55much more near freshwater sits right at the surface than we could have ever

00:58expected.