James Webb finds Carbon Dioxide on Jupiter's moon Europa

JWST NIRCam image of Europa. Credit: Geronimo Villanueva (NASA/GSFC), Samantha Trumbo (Cornell University), Alyssa Pagan (STScl), NASA, ESA, CSA

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has observed Jupiter's moon Europa. Europa is of especial interest to scientists, because it likely has a subsurface ocean beneath the ice. In fact, NASA will be sending a deticated mission to Europa next year.

Astronomers detected Carbon Dioxide in the Tara Regio on Europa's surface. This is believed to have come from Europa's subserface ocean. The Carbon is thought to be relatively recent on geological timescales.

JWST composition maps at different wavelengths. Credit: Geronimo Villanueva (NASA/GSFC), Samantha Trumbo (Cornell University), Alyssa Pagan (STScl), NASA, ESA, CSA

Tara Regio. Credit: NASA Solar System Treks

The Tara Regio region consists of young "chaos terrain," and is located northwest of Pwyll crater. The ice is disrupted, and there is likely some sort of exchange in materials going on. Hubble may have observeda plum on Europa back in 2013, but JWST didn't find any evidence of a plume during its observations.

That doesn't mean Hubble never saw a plume, because Europa's plumes may only last for short periods of time, unlike the constant plumes of Saturn's moon Enceladus. Further JWST observations may still show plumes.

The Target

Image of Europa from Juno. Credit; NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Björn Jónsson

• Date Discovered: 1610
• Radius: 1590.8 Kilometres
• Mass: 4.7998x10^22 Kilograms
• Density: 3.013 g/cm^3
• Rotational Period: 3.55 Days
• Orbital Period: 3.55 Days