JawaPos.com – The vast underground ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons, contains carbon that scientists have discovered is an important ingredient for life.
Observations made by the James Webb space telescope show that the carbon dioxide ice on the surface of Jupiter’s moon comes from a salty ocean located under a layer of ice 10 miles thick or about 16,000 meters.
This finding adds value to the view that Europa’s ocean could be the most promising place in the solar system.
This is a major and exciting finding, said Dr Christopher Glein, a geochemist at the Southwest Research Institute in Texas.
Reporting from The Guardian, Saturday (23/9), Dr Christopher Glein also said that his party does not yet know whether there really is life in Europa’s ocean.
However, these findings add to the evidence that Europa’s oceans could be a good place to harbor extant life, and the environment also appears tempting from an astrobiological perspective.
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About 2000 miles or 3.2 million kilometers wide, Europa looks slightly smaller than Earth’s moon.
Living creatures have to face several extreme hardships, including surface temperatures exceeding minus 140 degrees Celsius and incoming radiation from Jupiter.
Europa’s ocean, which is 64-150 kilometers deep, has made the moon a major competitor in the search for life.
The potential of deep sea habitats depends on their chemical content, including the amount of important biological elements such as carbon.
Previous research has identified the presence of solid CO2 ice on Europa’s surface but it is not clear whether the ice comes from subsurface ocean vomit or gets below the moon’s surface through meteorite impacts.
Recent observations made using infrared observations map the distribution of CO2 on Europa’s surface.
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2023-09-23 04:36:00
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