NASA spacecraft finds water in Jupiter's moon

London: A huge body of water as big as North America’s Great Lakes may lie beneath Jupiter’s moon Europa, astronomers have said. The water body, believed to be locked within Europa’s icy outer shell a few kilometres from the surface, offered one of the best hopes yet of finding life beyond the Earth, the researchers said. [caption id=“attachment_133673” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Artist’s concept of Europa’s “Great Lake” courtesy of NASA. Data from a NASA planetary mission has provided scientists evidence of what appears to be a body of liquid water, equal in volume to the North American Great Lakes, beneath the icy surface of Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Reuters”]  [/caption] Computer simulations based on the images of two circular bumpy regions on Europa’s surface captured by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, suggested that an “ice cave” might be buried near enough the surface to support life, with a floating “cap” leading to a cave of salty slush, the Daily Mail reported. On Earth, similar features in the Antarctic are caused by briny seawater penetrating and weakening ice shelves. They are also present in Iceland, where glaciers are heated from below by volcanic activity. Scientists have long suspected that a liquid or slushy ocean exists under Europa’s surface, warmed by the tidal forces of Jupiter’s powerful gravity. Theoretically, a liquid water ocean could provide a suitable habitat for life — but only if it was not too far from the surface. Experts disagree about how thick the layer of covering ice is. The new research, based on images from the Galileo probe, suggested that water “lenses” could lie as little as three kilometres below the bottom of the surface crust. Lead scientist Dr Britney Schmidt from the University of Texas, said: “One opinion in the scientific community has been, ‘If the ice shell is thick, that’s bad for biology — that it might mean the surface isn’t communicating with the underlying ocean’… Now we see evidence that even though the ice shell is thick, it can mix vigorously. That could make Europa and its ocean more habitable.” The research was published in the journal Nature. For their study, Dr Schmidt and his team focused on two circular bumpy regions on Europa’s surface —known as “chaos terrains”. Their existence will only be confirmed by a new space mission designed to probe Europa’s ice shell. Such a mission, likely to employ ground-penetrating radar, is now under consideration by American space agency, Nasa. Commenting on the study, Dr Robert Pappalardo, senior research scientist at Nasa’s planetary science section, said: “It’s the only convincing model that fits.” PTI