Conamara Chaos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Ice rafts" in Conamara Chaos

Enhanced-color regional view of Conamara Chaos, showing its location south of the intersection of two large "tripleband" lineae. White areas are ejecta rays from the large (26-km diameter) crater Pwyll 1000 km to the south

Conamara Chaos is a region of chaotic terrain on Jupiter's moon Europa. It is named after Conamara, in Ireland.

Conamara Chaos is a landscape produced by the disruption of the icy crust of Europa. The region consists of rafts of ice that have moved around and rotated. Surrounding these plates is a lower matrix of jumbled ice blocks which may have been formed as water, slush, or warm ice rose up from below the surface. The region is cited as evidence for a subsurface ocean below Europa's icy surface.