For the first time, scientists found carbon dioxide (CO2) on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon, Europa. The chemical compound, abundant on Earth, was detected on the frozen surface of the moon by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
This compound may originate from the vast ocean thought to exist beneath its icy crust, and the possibility that it was produced by life forms is not ruled out. CO2 is known as one of the basic building blocks of life, as it is the main carbon source for all living things, at least on our planet.
Europa, along with Earth and Saturn’s moon Enceladus, is identified as one of the few places in our solar system with liquid water, making it a major focus of interest for astrobiologists. If life exists beneath the moon’s surface crust, which is thought to be about 16 kilometers thick, it is likely that it would have evolved to survive in extremely cold environments. These life forms may be very small creatures, such as “extremophile” microbes, that cannot be seen with the naked human eye.
The researchers published their new results in two separate studies in the journal Science.
“Life on Earth loves chemical diversity, the more diversity the better,” says Geronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Understanding the chemistry of Europa’s ocean will help determine whether it is hostile to life as we know it.” “It will help us determine whether it is or is a good place to live.”
Scientists are almost certain that a saltwater ocean lurks beneath Europa’s icy surface, containing about twice as much water as Earth’s global ocean. But determining whether this hidden ocean has the right chemical elements to support life is not easy.
NIRSpec, the Webb telescope’s near-infrared spectrometer, can measure the near-infrared spectra of more than 100 objects simultaneously to learn more about their properties, including temperature, mass and chemical composition. US researchers used data from NIRSpec to map CO2 on Europa’s surface to find an answer. The most CO2 was found in a 1,800-kilometer-wide area called Tara Regio, where many “chaos terrains” (areas of jagged ridges and cracks) were found.
Disrupted surface ice suggests an exchange of material between the subsurface ocean and this icy outer shell. What exactly creates the chaos terrain is not fully understood, but one theory is that warm water from the ocean rises and melts the ice on the surface, which over time refreezes into new irregular rocks.
Scientists do not think that CO2 came from somewhere other than the ocean below, such as being carried by a meteorite that crashed on the moon. However, researchers also note that carbon came from the planet’s interior as rock-like carbonate minerals, and these minerals may have subsequently broken down and turned into CO2.
Carbon “is ultimately derived from the interior, probably the interior ocean,” Samantha Trumbo, a planetary scientist at Cornell University and lead author of the study, said in an interview with AFP.
Earlier observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, which undertook similar space exploration before James Webb, also show evidence of ocean-derived salt in Tara Regio. This makes the region appear significantly more yellow than the rest of Europa’s dappled white plains.
Additionally, experts expected to find water clouds or volatile gases coming from the surface of the moon, but no such detection was made. Determining precisely what lies beneath Europa’s icy layer may require a rover to land on the moon and drill into it.
However, we may be able to learn more about the basic structure of the moon in the near future. Two major space missions plan to take a closer look at Europa and its mysterious ocean. However, both of these missions will involve orbiters and will not land.
The European Space Agency’s Jupiter lunar probe Juice will launch in April, while NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to launch in October 2024.
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