Accident After Accident

The Spider Lander took a detour, traveling more than ten kilometers to reach the other side of the ice field.

According to the mission parameters set in its intelligent system, the Spider Lander's task was to head for a thermal geyser seventy-three kilometers away.

Thermal geysers were a unique phenomenon on Europa, born from geological activity. They resulted from interactions between Europa's geological activity and its surface ice sheet.

The ice sheet, roughly a hundred kilometers thick, exerted immense pressure on the ocean beneath it.

For comparison, consider the water pressure at the bottom of Blue Star's deepest trenches.

Blue Star's deepest trenches were only a little over ten thousand meters deep, while Europa's ice sheet was around a hundred kilometers thick—roughly ten times as much.

If Europa's surface had been a flowing liquid ocean rather than its current ice sheet, the widespread thermal geysers would not have existed.

But Europa's surface was covered by solid ice nearly a hundred kilometers thick. Solid ice could fracture and contain hollow regions; intense geological activity, for example, could create cracks in the ice sheet.

It was like a glass fish tank filled with water. Once a crack appeared in the glass, the water would inevitably seep out through it.

Europa was in just such a situation. The liquid ocean beneath the ice sheet endured enormous pressure, while geological activity created numerous cracks in the ice. The high-pressure water naturally erupted from underground.

Of course, frequent geological activity also made the locations and timing of these thermal geysers highly uncertain.

A geyser might be here today, then be covered by a fault tomorrow. That fault might create new cracks, bringing forth new thermal geysers.

The reason the Spider Lander was heading for the nearest thermal geyser was that geological activity on Europa's far