Europa, one of Jupiter’s 79 moons, may have the ingredients necessary to support life. A team of NASA scientists recently detected water vapor above Europa’s surface for the first time and their findings could help us better understand the inner workings of this mysterious place.
Forty years ago, a Voyager spacecraft captured images of Europa and revealed the brown cracks present on the moon’s icy surface. Scientists previously had evidence that liquid water is present under the moon’s surface and may occasionally erupt into space in giant geysers. However, scientists haven’t been able to confirm the presence of water vapor in these plumes.
This is where the team, which was led out of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, came up with a solution: peering at Europa and measuring water vapor with one of the world’s largest telescopes in Hawaii. The team reported these measurements in the journal Nature Astronomy on Nov. 18.
“Essential chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur) and sources of energy, two of three requirements for life, are found all over the solar system. But the third — liquid water — is somewhat hard to find beyond Earth,” said Lucas Paganini, a NASA planetary scientist who led the investigation. “While scientists have not yet detected liquid water directly, we’ve found the next best thing: water in vapor form.”
Confirmed: there’s water vapor present above the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa.
A research team led from @NASAGoddard made the detection — which supports the idea that below the ice, Europa has an ingredient necessary for life: liquid water. More: https://t.co/ic1w7MrlOo pic.twitter.com/pTunrBYA9J
— NASA (@NASA) November 18, 2019
What Paganini and his team found was shocking: They detected that enough water was being released from Europa (5,202 pounds per second) to fill up an Olympic-sized swimming pool in a couple of minutes and that the water shows up infrequently.
Here’s how they investigated this weird activity on Europa: While observing the moon from the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is located atop of the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, they saw water molecules at Europa’s leading hemisphere, which always faces the direction of the orbit. The team used a spectrograph that measures planetary atmospheres’ chemical composition through the infrared light they absorb or emit.
After detecting water vapor on Europa, scientists can now study the moon’s bizarre environment. This update helps support the idea that there may be a liquid water ocean, potentially twice as big as our planet’s, existing beneath Europa’s ice shell. The plumes could also be obtaining water vapor from shallow reservoirs of melted water ice below the moon’s surface.
One step closer to Europa! Our upcoming mission to Jupiter’s intriguing ocean moon is ready to move into the next phase. Coming up is the final design, followed by construction and testing of our spacecraft and science payload. Details: https://t.co/EH6jfP06Pv pic.twitter.com/8Y2WAmAckP
— NASA Europa Clipper (@EuropaClipper) August 19, 2019
The Europa Clipper mission, which is expected to launch in a few years, will further explore Europa, which is much more than a “veiny eyeball” near Jupiter.
More on Geek.com:
- NASA Greenlights Europa Clipper Design, Construction
- Scientists Spot Strange Table Salt Compound on Jupiter’s Europa
- NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Spots Windy, Colorful Region on Jupiter
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