NASA Discovers Jupiter's Europa May Be Habitable, Could Possibly Host Life

A research team from NASA has confirmed that water vapor exists on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. The latest finding supports the idea that the large planet’s satellite could hold traces of alien life.

The discovery was made by an international research team from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. By observing Europa using the W.M Keck Observatory, which is a powerful telescope in Hawaii, the team was able to confirm the presence of water on Europa.

Prior to the discovery, NASA scientists believed that it is possible for liquid water to exist on Europa. They theorized that through geysers on the moon’s surface, plumes of vapor erupt from Europa into space. However, the agency was not able to find traces of liquid water in these plumes.

Recently, through one of Hawaii’s most powerful telescopes, NASA researchers were able to closely observe Europa. Through their observations, they were able to detect traces of water vapor on the moon.

Lead researcher Luca Paganini, a planetary scientist from NASA, stressed the importance of the discovery since among the various elements found in space, liquid water is one of the rarest.

“Essential chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur) and sources of energy, two of three requirements for life, are found all over the solar system. But the third — liquid water — is somewhat hard to find beyond Earth,” he said in a statement.

“While scientists have not yet detected liquid water directly, we’ve found the next best thing: water in vapor form,” Paganini added.

Based on their findings, the researchers theorized that the water vapor could be coming from the massive subsurface oceans beneath Europa’s surface. It is also possible that reservoirs formed by melted ice on Europa could be the primary source of the water vapor. A third theory suggests that radiation from Jupiter could be melting the ice on the moon’s surface.

For Paganini and his team, their latest discovery could make a mission to Europa a priority for NASA. After all, past scientific reports have already indicated that liquid water is an essential factor in the formation of alien microbial life.

The findings of the researchers were presented in a new study published in the journal Nature.