204-Hubble Directly Images Possible Plumes on Europa
May 5
NASA’s Hubble Spots Possible Water Plumes Erupting on Jupiter’s Moon Europa.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope took direct ultraviolet images of the icy moon Europa transiting across the disk of Jupiter.
Out of ten observations, Hubble saw what may be water vapor plumes on three of the images. This adds another piece of supporting evidence to the existence of water vapor plumes on Europa – Hubble also detected spectroscopic signatures of water vapor in 2012.
The existence of water vapor plumes could provide a future Europa flyby mission the opportunity to study the conditions and habitability of Europa’s subsurface ocean.
The animation illustrates the magnetic connection between Europa’s induced magnetic field and the magnetic field lines of Jupiter’s own powerful magnetic field, which are directed from south (bottom) to north (top) at Europa’s location. The motion of the field lines is caused by the rocking of Jupiter’s magnetic field at the 11-hour rotation period with respect to Europa. The color-coding of the lines indicates increases (red) and decreases (blue) of the local magnetic field due to the creation of electrical currents and a resulting “induced” magnetic field within Europa’s global subsurface ocean.