29/09/2023
Update on the snowy surface of Europa
On the icy crust of Jupiter's moon Europa, the Webb telescope has discovered carbon dioxide that likely originated in the liquid water ocean below. Understanding the chemistry of this ocean could help determine if it is a good place for life as we know it.
The carbon dioxide was found to be most abundant in an area called Tara Regio, where there is evidence of material exchanging between Europa’s internal ocean and its crust. Carbon dioxide isn’t stable on Europa’s surface, so scientists believe it was deposited fairly recently, geologically speaking.
The 3 compositional maps (in orange, blue and white) below are derived from Webb’s NIRSpec instrument data. The white pixels represent carbon dioxide ice. The maps look pixelated as Europa is only 10x10 pixels across the field of view, but they offer amazing details—a full NIRSpec spectrum in each pixel!
Why isn’t Webb’s view of Europa clearer? Europa is very small (~90% the size of Earth’s Moon) compared to its distance of 390.4 million miles (628.3 million km) from us. Don’t forget that missions like Voyager & travel very close to the bodies they observed. In Oct. 2024, NASA plans to launch NASA's Europa Clipper Mission, which will perform dozens of close flybys of Europa to further investigate if it could have conditions for life.
Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-finds-carbon-source-on-surface-of-jupiter-s-moon-europa
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Geronimo Villanueva (NASA-GSFC), Samantha K Trumbo (Cornell University. Image processing: Geronimo Villanueva, Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
