Israeli physicist Yosef Ashkenazi of Ben-Gurion University has estimated the surface temperature of Europa, the smallest of Jupiter's four moons discovered by Galileo Galilei. It is believed that life is possible in the subglacial ocean of a celestial body. The research is published on the arXiv.org website.
The obtained values of the surface temperature of Europe depend on the latitude of the area. The maximum value should be at the equator (101.7 kelvin), and the minimum value should be at the pole (45.26 kelvin). The average value is 94.75 Kelvin.
Ashkenazi's calculations take into account, in contrast to previous works, the deviation of the trajectory of Jupiter's motion around the Sun from the circular one, the location of the satellite in the shadow of the planet, as well as the internal heating of Europa, on which the temperature at high latitudes most depends. The thickness of the satellite's ice crust, under which the ocean is hidden, is taken equal to 10 kilometers.
Europa is one of the main candidates for detecting extraterrestrial life in the solar system. Under the icy surface of the satellite, an under-ice ocean or a layer of viscous ice may be hidden. It is possible that there is twice as much salt water under Europa's crust as in the World Ocean on Earth.