Europa, one of Jupiter's largest moons, is also one of the few worlds in the Solar System with conditions potentially suitable for life. It is known that beneath its thick icy crust lies a vast ocean of liquid, salty water, and that the floor of this ocean is made of rock. However, planetary scientists have not yet been able to confirm the presence of some chemicals necessary for life as we know it, including carbon. This, however, has now been announced simultaneously by two independent teams of researchers in separate articles published in Science (here and here). The two groups reached the same conclusion after analyzing data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope: carbon dioxide exists in the subsurface ocean, and from there it seeps down to Europa's icy surface. Apparently, carbon turns out to be more abundant on Tara Regio, an area where the ground is highly disturbed and chaotic, full of pits, ridges, cracks, and mounds. Related News standard If Jupiter’s moon Callisto has a thousand times more oxygen than it should, and scientists can’t explain it José Manuel Nieves Despite this, researchers believe that it is a world too cold to host life as we know it Oceanic Carbon Scientists believe that Tara Regio is a relatively young area on Europa’s surface, and that it formed precisely because of its interactions with the underground ocean over the last few million years. The researchers assure that this carbon dioxide formed directly in the water and was not, therefore, emitted by meteorites or other external sources. “Here on Earth,” explains Gerónimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of one of the articles, “life likes chemical diversity: the more diversity, the better. We are a carbon-based life. Understanding the chemistry of Europa’s ocean will help us determine if it is hostile to life as we know it or if it could be a good place for it to develop.” “We now have observational evidence that the carbon we see on Europa’s surface is coming from the ocean,” says Samantha Trumbo of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and lead author of the second paper. “And that’s not trivial. Carbon is a biologically essential element, so it’s important to figure out how it got to Europa, how much is there, and in what form.” In the illustration, water and its components seep to Europa’s surface through the layer of ice covering its ocean. In the background, Jupiter and the moon Io. Two teams, one conclusion The two teams of scientists came to the same conclusion after analyzing data collected by the NIRSpec (Near Infrared Spectrograph), one instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope, which showed a resolution of 320 x 320 km across a field of view of 3,128 km in diameter, allowing astronomers to pinpoint exactly where the carbon and other specific chemicals were located. It's striking that the telescope's observations lasted only a few minutes. But even with that short time, it was possible to make important discoveries. For the researchers, "this work offers a first glimpse of all the amazing solar system science we'll be able to do with Webb." The telescope's schedule calls for three more observations of Europa, which will provide a much clearer view of what's on its surface. "Previous Hubble Space Telescope observations," Trumbo explains, "already showed evidence of salts coming from the ocean on Tara Regio. Now we're seeing that carbon dioxide is also highly concentrated there. We think this implies that the carbon likely ultimately originates in the internal ocean." "Scientists," Villanueva concludes, "have long debated the extent to which Europa's ocean is connected to its surface. I think this question has been a major driver of the moon's exploration. Therefore, the data obtained with James Webb "suggest that we can learn some basic things about the ocean's composition even before we go there and drill through the ice to get a complete picture." MORE INFORMATION news Yes They find out why, every 21,000 years, the Sahara Desert transforms into a garden news No Our ancestors were already creating wooden structures 476,000 years ago: "They were more similar to us than we thought" If all goes as planned, in October 2024 NASA will send its Europa Clipper mission to that Jovian moon, which will fly over it dozens of times and whose data will help determine whether or not it is habitable. In the coming years, the JUICE mission, this time from the European Space Agency, will also travel to Europe to try to answer the same question.
