Washington DC, May 29 -- A series of experiments led by Southwest Research Institute's Dr. Ujjwal Raut support spectral data recently collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that found evidence that the icy surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is constantly changing.

Europa's surface ice is crystallising at different rates in different places, which could point to a complex mix of external processes and geologic activity affecting the surface.

Water ice can be divided into two broad categories based on its structure.

On Earth, crystalline ice occurs when water molecules arrange into a hexagonal pattern during the freezing process.

But on the surface of Europa, exposed water ice is constantly bombarded by charged particles that ...