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headline

Inside Virgin's invite-only secret members lounge

Behind an unmarked door in the seemingly boring utopia of some of Australia's domestic airports is a club so exclusive you can only get in via an invitation from Virgin Australia's CEO Jayne Hrdlicka.

It's called the "Beyond Lounge", a frequent flyers paradise so secretive that only members have access to it and general passengers are almost unaware of its existence.

Built to rival the equally-exclusive Qantas Chairman's Lounge, Virgin's new Beyond Lounges officially open today in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

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Featuring all-day à la carte dining, complimentary beverages, privacy pods and even showers, the lounges will be reserved for corporate partners, some high-status Velocity Frequent Flyer members and "key opinion leaders".

Ms Hrdlicka said the invite-only lounges will allow the airline to offer "premium travel experiences" to business travellers.

"We are continuing to write a new chapter at Virgin Australia and this is the next wonderful edition of our transformation journey," Ms Hrdlicka said.

"Virgin Australia is dedicated to providing exceptional service experiences and product offerings at great value prices, and Beyond is a great example of Virgin Australia investing in the products and services our guests value most."

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Inside, members will find leather-clad and oak timber walls, plush Chester-style armchairs, bright greenery and frosted glass pods that allow "discretion" for those inside.

Private offices and board rooms are also available to members who book ahead.

Virgin's Group Chief Customer and Digital Officer Paul Jones said the lounges were set up to equally facilitate discreet business meetings or solo travel.

"Last year our members told us privacy, comfort, functional spaces and relaxed dining experiences are important in a private Lounge. And this is what we have delivered today," he said.

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"The dining experience is exceptional. Dishes take anywhere from five to 15 minutes to prepare and range from quick and convenient light dishes to more substantial items depending on the time of day and the duration of the members' visit. Our various seating zones also mean guests can dine with others or in private.

"We also know how much our members value our unique approach to service which can only be found at Virgin Australia. Our team members right across the airline are empowered to deliver our wonderful 'flair' in every step of the guest journey, no matter the status of the guest, or the seat number on their boarding pass."

Each member will be allowed to nominate a spouse or partner to enjoy the lounges, with memberships "reviewed" on an annual basis.

headline

Breakthrough discovery on Jupiter moon

On Jupiter's moon Europa, a saltwater ocean exists deep beneath a thick ice shell.

Now, a surprising connection between the ice shell and the Greenland ice sheet on Earth has provided new insight: Europa's ocean may be habitable, according to a new study.

Scientists have been intrigued for more than 20 years by dramatic gashes on Europa's icy surface.

Jupiter Europa moon ice shell

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These double ridges have crests that can reach almost 305 metres high, with wide valleys between them.

These features were first imaged by the NASA Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s, but researchers haven't been able to determine how they formed.

While studying the Greenland ice sheet using ice-penetrating radar observations, a team of researchers observed a similar double-ridge feature shaped like the letter M that's like a mini-version of the one on Europa.

A study detailing the findings published yesterday in the journal Nature Communications.

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Jupiter Europa moon ice shell

Water's impact on ice sheet topography

Airborne instruments help researchers study Earth's polar regions to watch changes in ice sheets that could have an effect on the global sea level. These eyes in the sky also look for ponds of surface meltwater, conduits that carry seasonal drainage and subglacial lakes.

"We were working on something totally different related to climate change and its impact on the surface of Greenland when we saw these tiny double ridges – and we were able to see the ridges go from 'not formed' to 'formed,'" said study senior author Dustin Schroeder, an associate professor of geophysics at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, in a statement.

Operation IceBridge – a NASA mission that collected surface elevation and radar data of the ice sheet between 2015 and 2017 – revealed that Greenland's double ridge formed after the ice fractured around water that was refreezing inside the ice sheet.

The pressure of the water pocket caused the distinct peaks to rise.

This led researchers to question if the same thing would be possible on Europa, where pockets of water could exist beneath the ice shell – and create potentially habitable environments on the otherwise inhospitable shell of the moon.

"In Greenland, this double ridge formed in a place where water from surface lakes and streams frequently drains into the near-surface and refreezes," lead study author Riley Culberg, a doctoral student in electrical engineering at Stanford, said in a statement.

"One way that similar shallow water pockets could form on Europa might be through water from the subsurface ocean being forced up into the ice shell through fractures – and that would suggest there could be a reasonable amount of exchange happening inside of the ice shell."

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Jupiter Europa moon ice shell

An ever-changing lunar surface

Europa appears to be a dynamic place, where plumes of water rise up through cracks in the ice shell, which is tens of kilometres thick. And this ice shell could be a place where the subsurface ocean and nutrients mix together.

"Because it's closer to the surface, where you get interesting chemicals from space, other moons and the volcanoes of Io (another moon that orbits Jupiter), there's a possibility that life has a shot if there are pockets of water in the shell," Professor Schroeder said.

"If the mechanism we see in Greenland is how these things happen on Europa, it suggests there's water everywhere."

This was the first time that scientists were able to watch something similar happen on Earth and actually observe the subsurface processes that led to the formation of the ridges, Dr Culberg said.

"The mechanism we put forward in this paper would have been almost too audacious and complicated to propose without seeing it happen in Greenland," Professor Schroeder said.

The broad data the team has already collected on Greenland's ice sheet may allow them to use it as an analog for the dynamic processes occurring on Europa in the future as well.

The temperature, chemistry and pressure are different on Europa when compared to Greenland, so the team want to investigate how these water pockets work on Europa.

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Europa is a target of two upcoming missions, the European Space Agency's JUICE (short for the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) and NASA's Europa Clipper.

Clipper will carry ice-penetrating radar, similar to how the researchers studied Greenland, to collect subsurface imaging of Europa's ice shell.

Europa stands out as one of the best candidates for hosting extra-terrestrial life in our solar system due to the liquid water in the subsurface ocean and what scientists understand about its chemistry, Dr Culberg said.