"Oh Crap, It Looks Like Europa’s Surface Is Covered With " Topic

….Gigantic Shards of Ice.

"Jupiter's moon Europa, with its subsurface ocean, may have what it takes to foster alien life. A mission to this icy moon is on the wishlist of many astronomers, but new research suggests it won't be easy to land spacecraft there: Its surface seems to be littered with icy spikes, the tallest of which measure five stories high.

New research published this week in Nature Geoscience suggests Europa's surface is covered with tall, sharp-edged icy blades known as penitentes (pronounced PEN-E-TENT-EES). If you're a geologist, that's a super cool discovery; but if you're an astrobiologist, it's a major bummer. That's because Europa, like Saturn's moon Enceladus, features a vast subsurface ocean that could serve as a potential habitat for extraterrestrial life. The presence of the penitentes—some reaching 50 feet into the sky—could "pose a hazard to a future lander on Europa," the researchers write in the new study…."
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Could be even worse:

Doesn't "penitente" mean penitent? Practitioners of ritual penance, including self flagellation?

Seriously, these are found on Earth. My son saw them in the high altiplanos of Peru.

And I think Pluto has similar features. Could be a rocky (icy?) landing

Global warming will soon reduce those to mere puddles, making landing easy.

But really, there are lots of ways to get the lander down, including tumbling landers that wouldn't mind these things. You could also orbit, take photos, pick a clear spot, and land there. Those space probe people are pretty clever these days.

But really, there are lots of ways to get the lander down, including tumbling landers that wouldn't mind these things.

Weren't the Mars Rover landers of this sort? On Mars it's the rocks that are the issue.