Magnetic remote sensing of Europa’s ocean tides

Recent analyses of Galileo magnetometer and gravity data justifies approximations that allow estimates of the magnetic fields generated by Europa’s ocean tides to be made even though some of the ocean parameters that would generally be required are unavailable. We show solutions for the magnetic fields generated by published estimates of ocean tides on Europa and provide simple scaling formulas that can be used to estimate the magnetic-field amplitudes for other choices for the ocean tidal state. Because of the distinguished spatial/temporal form of these fields, it is expected that Europa’s ocean tides can be inferred from remote magnetic sensing by an orbiter of sufficient duration.