
TL;DR
This paper provides a comprehensive estimation of Europa's surface temperature by incorporating factors like orbital eccentricity, internal heating, and eclipses, revealing significant effects on high-latitude temperatures and offering insights into Europa's thermal environment.
Contribution
It systematically estimates Europa's diurnal, seasonal, and annual surface temperatures considering multiple previously neglected factors, offering a more accurate thermal model.
Findings
Equatorial temperature: 96K
Polar temperature: 46K
Average annual temperature: 90K
Abstract
Previous estimates of the annual mean surface temperature of Jupiter's moon, Europa, neglected the effect of the eccentricity of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, the effect of the emissivity and heat capacity of Europa's ice, the effect of the eclipse of Europa (i.e., the relative time that Europa is within the shadow of Jupiter), the effect of Jupiter's radiation, and the effect of Europa's internal heating. Other studies concentrated on the diurnal cycle but neglected some of the above factors. In addition, to our knowledge, the seasonal cycle of the surface temperature of Europa was not estimated. Here we systematically estimate the diurnal, seasonal and annual mean surface temperature of Europa, when Europa's obliquity, emissivity, heat capacity, and eclipse, as well as Jupiter's radiation, internal heating, and eccentricity, are all taken into account. For a typical internal heating…
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