How do I calculate the thickness of the upper ice layer on cold ocean worlds like Europa, Enceladus, and Ganymede? I'm asking this for a programm I'm currently writing.
The given/known quantities are:
- Mass
- Radius
- Average density of metal (assume Fe) core, rock (assume MgSiO3) layer, and ice (assume H2O) layer
- Internal heat from tidal heating, radioactive decay and residual formation heat
- External heating from solar radiation (assume equal constant heating distributed over the entire surface or ignore it if it is irrelevant/minuscule)
- Pressure of the atmosphere above (assume pure N2 with variable pressure or no atmosphere)
I want to compute the thickness of the frozen (crust) and molten layer.
Bonus stuff: If easy adaptation of the formula for the calculation of the rocky layers crust thickness is possible I would appreciate it. Should it be possible, an adaptation to find the rocky crust thickness and the ice crust thickness on wolds where both are needed would be helpful.