Long-term stability of an subsurface ocean in Ganymede and its effect to tidal response, toward future altimetry measurement

Abstract:

The outer solar system provides potential habitats for extra-terrestrial life. Previous spacecraft’s and telescopic observations support that the Jovian icy moons may harbor water oceans beneath the icy crusts. However evidence for oceans is not definitive and awaits confirmation measurements. Also their depth and composition remain unclear, as do their stability and variability with time.

Here we focus on Ganymede, the primary target of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE). To investigate the lifetime of an ocean (thickness change through time), we perform numerical simulations for the internal thermal evolution using a one-dimensional spherically symmetric model for the convective and conductive heat transfer, with radial dependences of viscosity, heat source distribution, and other material properties. We assume an initially entirely liquid H₂O layer which is an end-member case, and take into account the energy production due to decay of long-lived radioactive elements and also evaluate the effect of tidal heating. To see the temporal change of the boundary position between solid ice layers including ice shell and high-pressure ice mantle, we also evaluate the energy balance at the phase boundaries between the solid and liquid H₂O layer, and the movements of the positions of these boundaries are calculated by evaluating the heat balance between incoming and outgoing flux at the boundaries considering with latent heat (classically known as a Stefan problem).

In addition, the existence of a subsurface ocean and internal rheological structure (essentially based on thermal structure) would determine Ganymede’s tidal response. JUICE mission,measurements of tidal deformation of Ganymede using laser altimetry will provide key information about its interior. We investigate the parameter dependence (e.g., elastic/rheological properties of ice and depth/thickness of the ocean, etc.) of Ganymede’s tidal response, adopting a depth-dependent viscosity prole assuming a conductive ice shell, and discuss the possibility for GALA measurements to distinguish such parameter differences in tidal amplitude.