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Plumes of water vapor erupting from Jupiter’s moon Europa could come from within the crust itself and reveal whether life on the frozen satellite can be detected.
Astronomers have been fascinated by Europa’s apparent plumes since the Hubble Space Telescope spotted a huge jet of steam exploding from its south pole in 2012. The extraordinary ejection appeared to be 200 km (120 miles) high, more than 20 times l height of Mount Everest.
Experts previously believed that salt water moved within the moon’s inner ocean before periodically exploding in gigantic eruptions. However, new research has proposed that the plumes may have come from pockets of water embedded in the moon’s frozen shell.
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Where exactly the plumes come from is important because water from the ice crust is considered less hospitable to life than if it came from the inner ocean. This is because he probably lacks the energy which is a necessary ingredient for life. In the ocean of Europe, that energy could come from hydrothermal vents on the sea floor.
“Understanding where these water plumes come from is very important to know if future explorers of Europa could have the ability to actually detect life from space without probing Europa’s ocean,” explained study lead author Gregor Steinbrügge, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
A 29-kilometer-wide crater over Europa called Manannán was at the center of their analysis. The cleared area was the result of an impact with another celestial object tens of millions of years ago.
Scientists thought that such a dramatic collision would generate an incredible amount of heat. They then modeled how the melted ice and subsequent freezing of the water pocket inside the frozen shell could pressurize it and cause the water to explode in huge plumes.
“The comet or asteroid that hit the ice shell was basically a great experiment we’re using to build hypotheses to test.” said co-author Don Blankenship, a senior research fellow at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG). “Our model makes specific predictions that we can test using radar data and other tools on the Europa Clipper.”
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