Geysers of water vapor on Europa, Jupiter’s moon hides an ocean – BEND.it

there May be plumes of water vapor high up to 200 kilometers on the surface of Europa, the icy moon of Jupiter that hides an ocean below the surface: these geysers, immortalized by the Hubble space telescope of Nasa and the european space Agency (Esa), indicate a “surprising activity”, as explained by the experts of the us space agency in a press conference, and in the future could facilitate any missions aimed at studying the ‘heart’ of the satellite, considered to be among the best candidates for hosting life in the solar System.

Under the icy surface, Europa conceals a huge ocean, and the ocean contains twice the water of the oceans of the earth. The steam plumes photographed from Hubble may provide a unique opportunity to collect samples without having to land and perforarne the surface. If the discovery were to be confirmed, Europa would be the second moon in the solar System to have plumes of water vapor along with Enceladus, satellite of Saturn.

clues
The first evidence of the presence of geysers on the surface of Europe, had already been collected in 2012 by researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, the first to discover direct evidence for the existence of plumes of steam high up to 160 kilometres in the south polar region.

Assumptions and confirmations
This hypothesis is confirmed now by the group of William Sparks, Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which, thanks to the Hubble is able to observe the presence of the geysers during the transit of Europa in front of Jupiter in three different occasions in the span of 15 months. The data are published in a study of the Astrophysical Journal. Further evidence of the eruptive activity may come in the future, thanks to vista’s infrared James Webb Space Telescope, whose launch is planned for 2018. Nasa is also planning a mission live on Europe in order to study the plumes during a series of close flybys.

An ocean capable of hosting life
The focus is so concentrated on Europe, as recent research conducted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Jpl) of Nasa indicate that in the hidden ocean of Europa could be the right chemical balance to support life. On Europe would in fact be active, a cycle of production of hydrogen and oxygen similar to that of our planet to feed the life.