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Penitente formation is unlikely on Europa

Nature Geoscience volume 13, pages 17–19 (2020)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 02 December 2019

The Original Article was published on 08 October 2018

arising from D. E. J. Hobley et al. Nature Geoscience https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0235-0 (2018)

Europa’s icy surface is unknown at the metre scale. Hobley et al.1 argue that 15-m-tall ice spikes, called penitentes, form on Europa as a result of sublimation and solar irradiance. The sublimation calculations are well founded, but we suggest that the extension to penitente formation is incomplete. The airless surface of Europa yields a large mean free path for water of about 1 × 105 m, leading to efficient sublimation, instead of the differential sublimation modulated by self-illumination that is required for penitentes to form2,3,4,5,6,7.

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Fig. 1: Horizontal wavelength of penitentes as a function of surface albedo and the length scale for vapour diffusion.
Fig. 2: Laboratory experiments examining the temperature–pressure sensitivity of penitente formation.

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Acknowledgements

This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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  1. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    K. P. Hand, D. Berisford, T. Daimaru, J. Foster, A. E. Hofmann & B. Furst

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  1. K. P. Hand
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  2. D. Berisford
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  3. T. Daimaru
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  4. J. Foster
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  5. A. E. Hofmann
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Contributions

K.P.H. conceived the research, wrote the manuscript and helped with the design and execution of the experiments. D.B. edited the manuscript and helped lead the design, construction and execution of the experiments. T.D., J.F., A.E.H. and B.F. all helped with the design, construction and execution of the experiments.

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Correspondence to K. P. Hand.

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Hand, K.P., Berisford, D., Daimaru, T. et al. Penitente formation is unlikely on Europa. Nat. Geosci. 13, 17–19 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0496-2

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