JPL News: Old Data Reveal New Evidence of Europa Plumes

Scientists re-examining data from an old mission bring new insights to the tantalizing question of whether Jupiter's moon Europa has the ingredients to support life. The data provide independent evidence that the moon's subsurface liquid water reservoir may be venting plumes of water vapor above its icy shell.

Data collected by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in 1997 were put through new and advanced computer models to untangle a mystery — a brief, localized bend in themagnetic field — that had gone unexplained until now. Previous ultraviolet images from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2012 suggested the presence of plumes, but this new analysis used data collected much closer to the source and is considered strong, corroborating support for plumes. The findings appear in Monday's issue of the journal Nature Astronomy.

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