Space & Astronomy

NASA has discovered water plumes on Europa

By T.K. Randall
September 27, 2016

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Last week NASA revealed that it had found 'surprising evidence of activity' on Jupiter's icy moon Europa, a world covered in a thick layer of ice under which scientists believe there exists a large sub-surface ocean of liquid water with the potential to support primitive life forms.

An announcement about the discovery, which took place on Monday, later confirmed that what the space agency had found was evidence of large plumes of liquid water gushing up in to space."If plumes exist, this is an exciting find as it potentially gives easier access to the ocean below, and would allow us to search for signs of life in the ocean of Europa without needing to drill through miles of ice," said astronomer Dr William Sparks.

"However, I do want to stress that the observations are at the limit of what Hubble can do... We remain cautious, because we're working at difficult wavelengths for Hubble."

A NASA video discussing the discovery in more detail can be viewed below.


Source: Wired

Tags: Europa, Jupiter