Ice blocks in some areas appear to have fractured and moved around, he said. Salt deposits appear at or near those features, indicating ocean water flowed onto the surface, evaporated, was flash frozen and left the salty deposits, McCord said. Water itself is not conducting but brine, salty water, is very conducting. Researcher Gary Hansen said the source of the magnetic field hasn't been pinned down. If we get enough good magnetic field measurements, we can actually come very close to proving the source is very shallow.
Salts are nutrients and evidence of liquid water.
You have heat, otherwise the water wouldn't be liquid. He went through a complicated process of freezing the meteorite brine and analyzed all the ices and brines that came out for chemical components to simulate minerals that might be near breaks in Europa's crust. McCord's group is injecting brines into into extremely cold temperatures, as if through Europa's icy crust, to analyze them and they're seeking funding for more elaborate experiments. One of the salts is sodium carbonate, a key element in support of life in the Earth's ocean, McCord said. The warehouse at Kawaihae didn't have a door big enough for it to fit through, so a hole had to be cut in the side of the metal building with torches, Kennedy said.