"Creation of the first global temperature map of Europa"

LOS ANGELES: Astronomers created the first global thermal map of Europa's iced moon of Jupiter using images taken with the ALMA observatory in Chile.

The new series of four images from Europe has a resolution of about 200 km, sufficient to study the relationship between thermal surface variations and the main geological features of the moon.

The research, published in the Astronomical Journal, compared the new Europa observations made by a network of large millimeters / sub-millimeters of atacama (ALMA) to a thermal model based on observations of the Galileo spacecraft .

This comparison allowed researchers to badyze temperature variations in the data and to build the world's first-ever global map of Europa thermal features.

The new data also reveal an enigmatic cold spot in the northern hemisphere of Europe.

"These ALMA images are really interesting as they provide the world's first thermal emission map of Europe," said Samantha Trumbo, scientist in planetary science at the California Institute of Technology in the United States .

"As Europa is an oceanic world with potential geological activity, its surface temperatures are of great interest because they can limit the location and extent of such activities," said Trumbo.

Europa has a chaotic surface terrain fractured and cracked, suggesting a long history of geological activity.

Evidence strongly suggests that under its thin ice cover, Europa has an ocean of brackish water in contact with a rocky core.

Europa also has a relatively young surface, aged about 20 to 180 million years, indicating that unidentified thermal or geological processes are at work.

Unlike optical telescopes, which can only detect the sun's rays reflected by planetary bodies, radio and millimeter-wave telescopes like ALMA detect the thermal "glow" naturally emitted by even the coldest objects in our system solar, including comets, asteroids and moons.

At its hottest point, the surface temperature of the Europa never exceeds less than 160 degrees Celsius, researchers said.

"The study of thermal properties of Europa provides a unique way to understand its surface," said Bryan Butler, astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory of New Mexico.