Europa Spews Water Jets

Scientists have collected clues for decades of an ocean beneath Europa’s icy shell. In 1979, Voyager spacecraft showed the ice was cracked in places. The 1990s Galileo mission that spent eight years orbiting Jupiter confirmed the ocean under Europa. Hubble Space Telescope has spotted what may be water vapour plumes erupting off Jupiter’s icy moon Europa. This is the second sighting of the water jets. Scientists first reported the phenomenon in 2013. Beneath its icy crust is a sizeable, H₂O ocean type that covers the whole moon. As an incubator for life chances are way better to find life than on Titan’s super-chilled methane lakes. A 2016 study suggested Europa produces 10 times more oxygen than hydrogen, a 2014 study suggested the moon may have plate tectonics, qualities that would make it like Earth.

EUROPA

                About the size of Earth’s moon, at its warmest only about: -260F (-160C), and covered in an icy shell that makes it one of the most reflective objects. It has a rocky core with range of chemicals, and energy generated by tidal heating.

What The Image Captured

                Jets that reach around 200km in height before falling back on to Europa. The calculation based on the 2013-reported work estimated a volume of water equivalent to an Olympic swimming pool could be being spewed into space about every eight minutes.

How Can You Tell It’s Water From An Image?

                Hubble made its latest identification by studying Europa as it passed in front of Jupiter. The Telescope looked in ultraviolet wavelengths to see if the giant planet’s light was being absorbed by material emanating from the moon’s surface. Ten times Hubble looked and on three of those occasions it spied what appeared to be “dark fingers” extending from the edge of Europa. The observations were made in 2014.

Expanding Club

                So far, the only ocean worlds we’ve got are Earth, Jupiter’s largest moon Ganymede, Saturn’s moons Titan and Encedalus, and now Europa. Those moons are where scientists think extra-terrestrial life in our solar system is most likely to be found.