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Is there life outside of the earth? Swedish scientists find water vapor on Jupiter’s moon Europa – and thus feed astronomers’ research into extraterrestrial life.
Stockholm – Guy Consolmagno is one of the most popular astronomers who deals with the question of life in space. The Pope’s chief astronomer wrote a book entitled “Would You Baptize an Alien?” “I have no evidence that extraterrestrial life exists. But I believe that it is possible and that is why I am researching it intensively, ”he told Deutschlandfunk in 2017.
One of Consolmagno’s hopes rests – like those of many other space explorers – on Jupiter’s moon Europa, as he does on it vaticanobservatory.org writes. Europe is almost as big as the Earth’s moon and has already been the scene of exciting discoveries. Swedish researchers have now discovered a large amount of water vapor on Jupiter’s moon.
Jupiter’s moon Europa hides a large ocean under a layer of ice
Two years ago, small amounts of water vapor were found on Jupiter’s moon Europa. “Jupiter’s moon Europa is an interesting subject of research because of its potential to harbor life,” write researchers from the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, KTH. According to this, one suspects under the thick layer of ice of the moon – where temperatures are around -170 degrees Celsius – an ocean that is larger than the water resources on earth.
Alien life possible? Water vapor discovery on Jupiter’s moon Europa feeds speculations by astronomers
Lorenz Roth, physicist at the KTH, has now been able to detect large quantities of water vapor on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Given the low temperatures, this is a surprising finding. Apparently the water vapor is constantly being renewed, but it is not created by evaporation. It is possible that the water vapor arises directly from the ice state without changing into a liquid state in between. Long-term recordings from the Hubble Space Telescope enabled Roth to detect water vapor on the back of Europe. He had already succeeded in doing something similar on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.
“The observation of water vapor on Ganymede and on the back of Europe advances our understanding of the atmospheres of icy moons,” said Roth. His discoveries should now support further research with the help of the NASA space probe “Europa Clipper” and the “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer” of the European space agency ESA. (kat)
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