If there is water, there is life. Europa – one of Jupiter’s four moons – is emerging as the last candidate with the potential to harbor life in the solar system.
As reported, NASA held a press conference to announce an important discovery on Europa – one of Jupiter’s 4 moons. Previously, many people had speculated that the press conference would likely include information about the aliens.
Unfortunately, there are no aliens. But in turn, the potential for life on Europe is enormous, as the Hubble Telescope recently captured an image of what looks like a water column over 200,000m high on the surface of this Jupiter moon.
This shows that beneath the surface of Europe lies a huge underground ocean and that this amount of water has followed the geothermal edges in the air.
According to Paul Hertz, director of the astrophysics division of NASA, “For a long time humanity has had a headache wondering if life exists anywhere? And how lucky we are to be born. At a time when this question can be answered. the truth is, Earth-like life can be found anywhere, as long as there is water and nutrients. “
“So we’ve always been interested in places full of such characteristics. And it looks like Europa is the place. Today’s results give us more confidence that liquid water can appear on Earth. Europe, and we can study it without having to dig. in the ice miles deep. “
More observations have yet to be made, but if this image is confirmed, Europe will be the 2nd moon in the solar system to have an never-before-discovered water spray phenomenon. Previously, the Cassini spacecraft captured water rushing over the surface of Enceladus – Saturn’s moon.
According to Geoff Yoder – NASA Science Mission Oriented Administrator: “The European Ocean is one of the potential hotspots for life in our solar system. These vapors, if real, will give us many options to test. the ability to sustain life. here. “
Previously, experts suspected that beneath the surface of Europe lay a huge ocean, with even twice as much water as the oceans on Earth. However, this water is protected by a layer of super thick, super hard and super cold ice.
Hubble data on Europa has been collected since January 2014, based on data from the Galileo and Voyager missions. As a result, NASA obtained an image of what is believed to be a water column, spewing up to 200 km high and then spilling onto the surface of Europe.
The team led by William Sparks of the Institute for Astronomical Observation Science (Baltimore) monitors Europa every time it passes Jupiter. They realized that if there was indeed water vapor over Europe, it could potentially block the light from Jupiter, and we would see that the star has some dark areas.
The follow-up lasted 15 months and the results, as reported, show signs of water vapor on the surface of Europa, making Europa the new candidate with the potential to sustain life in the solar system generation.
