Carbon Source Found on Surface of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon Europa | NASA Webb

Carbon Source Found on Surface of Jupiter’s Ocean Moon Europa | NASA Webb

Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of a handful of worlds in our Solar System that could potentially harbor conditions suitable for life. Previous research has shown that beneath its water-ice crust lies a salty ocean of liquid water with a rocky seafloor. However, planetary scientists had not confirmed whether or not that ocean contained the chemicals needed for life, particularly carbon.

Astronomers using data from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope have identified carbon dioxide in a specific region on the icy surface of Europa. Analysis indicates that this carbon likely originated in the subsurface ocean and was not delivered by meteorites or other external sources. Moreover, it was deposited on a geologically recent timescale. This discovery has important implications for the potential habitability of Europa’s ocean.

“On Earth, life likes chemical diversity—the more diversity, the better. We’re carbon-based life. Understanding the chemistry of Europa’s ocean will help us determine whether it’s hostile to life as we know it, or whether it might be a good place for life,” said Geronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, lead author of one of two independent papers describing the findings.

“We now think that we have observational evidence that the carbon we see on Europa’s surface came from the ocean. That’s not a trivial thing. Carbon is a biologically essential element,” added Samantha Trumbo of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, lead author of the second paper analyzing this data.

NASA plans to launch its Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will perform dozens of close flybys of Europa to further investigate whether it could have conditions suitable for life, in October 2024.

A Surface-Ocean Connection

Webb finds that on Europa’s surface, carbon dioxide is most abundant in a region called Tara Regio—a geologically young area of generally resurfaced terrain known as ‘chaos terrain’. The surface ice has been disrupted, and there has likely been an exchange of material between the subsurface ocean and the icy surface.

“These observations only took a few minutes of the observatory’s time,” said Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, a Webb interdisciplinary scientist leading Webb’s Cycle 1 Guaranteed Time Observations of the Solar System. “Even in this short period of time, we were able to do really big science. This work gives a first hint of all the amazing Solar System science we’ll be able to do with Webb.”

These findings may help inform NASA’s Europa Clipper mission, as well as ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Juice, which was launched on April 14, 2023. Juice will make detailed observations of the giant gas planet and its three large ocean-bearing moons—Ganymede, Callisto and Europa—with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments. The mission will characterize these moons as both planetary objects and possible habitats, explore Jupiter’s complex environment in depth, and study the wider Jupiter system as an archetype for gas giants across the Universe.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, G. Villanueva (NASA/GSFC), S. Trumbo (Cornell Univ.), A. Pagan (STScI)

Release Date: Sept. 21, 2023

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