NASA confirms water vapour on Jupiter's moon Europa

Scientists at NASA have detected water vapour for first time above surface of Europa, a finding that supports idea of a liquid water ocean sloshing beneath miles-thick ice shell of Jupiter's moon. study, published in journal Nature Astromy, measured vapour by peering at Europa through W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, US.

Missions to outer solar system have amassed eugh information about Europa to make it a high-priority target of investigation in NASA's search for life. What makes this moon so alluring is possibility that it may possess all of ingredients necessary for life, said researchers from NASA's Goddard Flight Center in US.

Scientists have evidence that one of se ingredients, liquid water, is present under icy surface and may sometimes erupt into in huge geysers. However, one has been able to confirm presence of water in se plumes by directly measuring water molecule itself, NASA said in a statement.

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Confirming that water vapour is present above Europa helps scientists better understand inner workings of moon, US ncy said. For example, it helps support an idea -- of which scientists are confident -- that re's a liquid water ocean, possibly twice as big as Earth's, sloshing beneath this moon's miles-thick ice shell, NASA said.

Ar source of water for plumes, some scientists suspect, could be shallow reservoirs of melted water-ice t far below Europa's surface. It's also possible that Jupiter's strong riation field is stripping water particles from Europa's ice shell, though recent investigation argued against this mechanism as source of observed water.

"Essential chemical elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulphur) and sources of energy, two of three requirements for life, are found all over solar system. But third -- liquid water -- is somewhat hard to find beyond Earth," said Lucas Paganini, a NASA planetary scientist who led water detection investigation.

"While scientists have t yet detected liquid water directly, we've found next best thing: water in vapour form," Paganin said. researchers said that y detected eugh water releasing from Europa (2,360 kilogrammes per second) to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool within minutes.

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scientists also found that water appears infrequently, at least in amounts large eugh to detect from Earth. "For me, interesting thing about this work is t only first direct detection of water above Europa, but also lack reof within limits of our detection method," said Paganini.

team detected faint yet distinct signal of water vapour just once throughout 17 nights of observations between 2016 and 2017. Looking at moon from Keck Observatory, scientists saw water molecules at Europa's leing hemisphere, or side of moon that's always facing in direction of moon's orbit around Jupiter.

y used Keck Observatory's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSPEC), which measures chemical composition of planetary atmospheres through infrared light y emit or absorb. Molecules such as water reflect specific frequencies of infrared light as y interact with solar riation.

"This first direct identification of water vapour on Europa is a critical confirmation of our original detections of atomic species, and it highlights apparent sparsity of large plumes on this icy world" said Lorenz Roth, an astromer and physicist from KTH Royal Institute of Techlogy in Sweden, a co-author of research.

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