The Search for a Habitable Europa: Radar, Water and an Active Ice Shell

Future Europa exploration will seek to characterize the distribution of shallow subsurface water as well as to understand the formation of surface features through dynamic ice-shell processes. Radar sounding will be a critical tool for detecting these features, and should be of primary interest to the astrobiology community for understanding how and where life might arise on Europa. To develop successful instrumentation and data interpretation techniques for exploring Europa, we must leverage analogous terrestrial environments and processes. Airborne ice penetrating radar is now a mature tool in terrestrial studies of Earth’s ice sheets, and orbital examples have been successful at the Moon and Mars.