The Science Case for Io Exploration

Io is a priority destination for solar system exploration, as it is the best natural laboratory to study the intertwined processes of tidal heating, extreme volcanism, and atmosphere-magnetosphere interactions. Io exploration is relevant to understanding terrestrial worlds (including the early Earth), ocean worlds, and exoplanets across the cosmos

Recommendations for Addressing Priority Io Science in the Next Decade

Io is a priority destination for solar system exploration. The scope and importance of science questions at Io necessitates a broad portfolio of research and analysis, telescopic observations, and planetary missions - including a dedicated New Frontiers class Io mission

Nonlinear tidal dissipation in the subsurface oceans of Enceladus and other icy satellites

Subsurface ocean tides act as a mechanism to dissipate tidal energy in icy satellite interiors. We numerically model the effect of an ice shell on ocean tides using non-linear bottom drag for the first time. We demonstrate that subsurface oceans experience tidal pressurization due to the confining nature of the ice shell, and find that Enceladus' eccentricity forcing can generate up to 2.2 kPa of pressure excess at the ocean surface. Existing free surface oceanic energy dissipation scaling laws are extended to subsurface oceans, and are benchmarked against our numerical results to within 10 %. We show that for the large bodies Ganymede, Europa and Titan, an ice shell increases eccentricity tidal heating due to self-gravity, whereas the shell's suppressive mechanical forcing reduces eccentricity tide dissipation on Enceladus and Dione by several orders of magnitude due to their high effective rigidities. In contrast, the ice shell enhances obliquity-forced dissipation in all satellites investigated, except Triton, because the largely divergence-free ocean response is unaffected by the shell's rigidity but is still enhanced by self-gravity. We conclude that the fundamental difference in ocean response to obliquity and eccentricity forcing, combined with self-gravity, results in increased obliquity heating and suppressed eccentricity heating in small satellites. For large satellites with low effective rigidities, the type of ocean response is less important because the shell's mechanical forcing has little impact on the flow, whereas self-gravity will enhance the response, and consequently dissipation, regardless of the forcing. Overall, obliquity tides are likely to dominate the tidal heating budget of icy satellite oceans, remaining the most prominent source of fluid dissipation in subsurface barotropic ocean tides.NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF); NASA [NNX15AQ88G]24 month embargo; published online: 18 September 2018This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Integrated Interior Science with Europa Clipper

The Galileo mission to Jupiter revealed that Europa is an ocean world. The Galileo magnetometer experiment in particular provided strong evidence for a salty subsurface ocean beneath the ice shell, likely in contact with the rocky core. Within the ice shell and ocean, a number of tectonic and geodynamic processes may operate today or have operated at some point in the past, including solid ice convection, diapirism, subsumption, and interstitial lake formation. The science objectives of the Europa Clipper mission include the characterization of Europa’s interior; confirmation of the presence of a subsurface ocean; identification of constraints on the depth to this ocean, and on its salinity and thickness; and determination of processes of material exchange between the surface, ice shell, and ocean. Three broad categories of investigation are planned to interrogate different aspects of the subsurface structure and properties of the ice shell and ocean: magnetic induction, subsurface radar sounding, and tidal deformation. These investigations are supplemented by several auxiliary measurements. Alone, each of these investigations will reveal unique information. Together, the synergy between these investigations will expose the secrets of the Europan interior in unprecedented detail, an essential step in evaluating the habitability of this ocean world