Jupiter's moon Europa is the current set target by NASA for exploring what it has. The recent reports from NASA suggest that the Europa was found with towering plumes of water vapor from the hidden ocean below its icy crust.
Europa is a moon of Jupiter discovered by Galileo in 1610 with different type of composition other than the earth. NASA very curious about the Jupiter moon Europa and the scientists showed a way in 1990 that the Europa is made of thick ice crust under which a stress effected salt water exists which is twice the volume of water on earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope had found earlier about the plumes of water vapor hitting up from the crust with different techniques, but observers did not give any confirmations about their findings. Now the Hubble Space Telescope has found again the same which appears to be towering plumes of water vapor from the Europa crust.
According to CBS News, NASA is reported to be at its initial stage in developing a spacecraft to explore Europa in the 2020s. With the findings, it is a major interest for the astrobiologists because of observation made on Europa is related to the possible existence water, energy and any other substances.
The reports depict that the ocean is heated and kept from freezing by the tidal stresses, the constant squeezing and stretching the moon experiences due to Jupiter's enormous gravity as it swings around the giant planet every 3.5 days causes plumes of water vapor towering up to 125 miles.
The team of researchers with the Hubble Space telescope's imaging spectrograph had earlier found the water vapor 100 miles above Europa's South Pole in 2012. Later the Spark's team conducted observations with different techniques at the same place and from 10 observations 3 indicated that the plumes of water vapor is towering 125 miles above the crust.
Paul Hertz, director of astrophysics at NASA Headquarters in Washington said "Today's results increase our confidence that water and other materials from Europa's hidden ocean might be on the surface and available for us to study,"
The European Space Agency is also planning to fly its own spacecraft to the gas giant around the same time to study its three largest moons - Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Presence of water doubts presence of life. Stay tuned for more updates.
