A Space Oddessey 2061 Book 3 Chapter 58: Fire and Ice PART VIII: THE KINGDOM OF SULPHUR

A Space Oddessey 2061 Book 3 Chapter 58: Fire and Ice PART VIII: THE KINGDOM OF SULPHUR

Before the age of planetary exploration opened in the late twentieth century, few scientists would have believed that life could have flourished on a world so fan from the Sun. Yet for half a billion years, the hidden seas of Europa had been at least as prolific as those of Earth. Before the ignition of Jupiter, a crust of ice had protected those oceans from the vacuum above. In most places the ice was kilometres thick, but there were lines of weakness where it had cracked open and torn apart. Then there had been a brief battle between two implacably hostile elements, which came into direct contact on no other world in the Solar System. The war between Sea and Space always ended in the same stalemate; the exposed water simultaneously boiled and froze, repairing the armour of ice. The seas of Europa would have frozen completely solid long ago, without the influence of nearby Jupiter. Its gravity continually kneaded the core of this little world; the forces that convulsed Io were also working her…