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News Article: Hubble spots evidence of water plumes on Jupiter's moon Europa

Bamaro

Bamaro

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For all the space and extraterrestrial life junkies
(Reuters) - Astronomers on Monday said they have spotted evidence of water vapor plumes rising from Jupiter's moon Europa, a finding that might make it easier to learn whether life exists in the warm, salty ocean hidden beneath its icy surface.

The apparent plumes detected by the Hubble Space Telescope shoot about 125 miles (200 km) above Europa's surface before, presumably, raining material back down onto the moon's surface, NASA said.

Europa, considered one of the most promising candidates for life in the solar system beyond Earth, boasts a global ocean with twice as much water as in all of Earth's seas hidden under a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness.

While drilling through the ice to test ocean water for signs of life would be a daunting task, sampling water from the plumes might be a simpler project.

"If the plumes are real, it potentially gives us easier access to the ocean below ... without needing to drill into miles of ice," said lead researcher Williams Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Greenbelt, Maryland.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/hubble-s...es-jupiters-moon-europa-194451217.html?ref=gs
 
MattinBama

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Hopefully in my lifetime we'll get to see some underwater Europa mermaid mating with one of these.
 
Catfish

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While drilling through the ice to test ocean water for signs of life would be a daunting task, sampling water from the plumes might be a simpler project.

"If the plumes are real, it potentially gives us easier access to the ocean below ... without needing to drill into miles of ice," said lead researcher Williams Sparks of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Click to expand...
But, if you do need to do a little extraterrestrial drilling...

 
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