SPACE
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed homemade carbon dioxide on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, raising the possibility that the frigid water world could host life. Europa, which is a little bit smaller than Earth’s moon, is covered with a crust of water ice enveloping a saltwater ocean. The presence of liquid water makes Europa an intriguing object of exploration for scientists interested in extraterrestrial life. But until now, no one had shown that the ocean contained the proper molecules, particularly carbon, which is a fundamental building block of life on Earth.
The new detection by Webb is intriguing because the carbon dioxide does not seem to have been carried by a meteorite or asteroid, and it appears in a geologically young region of the moon called Tara Regio, suggesting the gas may have formed within the moon itself.
“Previous observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show evidence for ocean-derived salt in Tara Regio,” said Cornell University planetary scientist Samantha Trumbo. “Now we’re seeing that carbon dioxide is heavily concentrated there as well. We think this implies that the carbon probably has its ultimate origin in the internal ocean.”
The researchers found signs of both crystalline and amorphous carbon dioxide on Europa. ‘Amorphous’ refers to a disorganised molecular form, as compared with the rigid patterns of crystals. They saw high concentrations in what astronomers call ‘ch
