Erland Schulson
Thayer School of Engineering, Engineering Sciences Department, Director, Ice Research Laboratory, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755, USA, Thayer School of Engineering, Engineering Sciences Department, Director, Ice Research Laboratory, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755, USA
Author ProfileAbstract
Enceladus and possibly Europa spew materials from their internal ocean
into their exosphere, some of which are deposited back onto the surface
of those Ocean Worlds. This setting provides a unique opportunity to
seek traces of past or extant life in ice plume deposits on their
surfaces. However, the design of lander missions and surface sampling
techniques, and the choice of sampling locations rely heavily on
strength expectations. Here we present an experimental investigation of
the evolution in strength of ice plume deposit analogs at several
temperatures, as well as a model that predicts first-order estimates of
the strength of evolved ice plume deposits under geologic timescales
relevant to Enceladus and Europa. These results suggest that plume
deposits remain weak and poorly consolidated on Enceladus, while they
may develop substantial strength (comparable to solid ice) within
< 100 My on Europa.