Water vapor on Jupiter reinforces the belief that it is home to “octopus”-like aliens

 The Hubble Space Telescope confirmed that Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, attracts fixed water vapor in only one hemisphere.

Water vapor is found in the later hemisphere, the part of the moon that is always opposite to its motion in its orbit, according to a statement from the European Space Agency.

Currently, researchers do not yet understand why water vapor is only found in the later hemisphere, not the front hemisphere.

The study used archival Hubble images and spectra and a technique that determined the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Ganymede, to reach their findings.

The presence of water vapor on Europa has been proven since 2013, when Hubble photographed plumes exploding more than 60 miles across its ice sheet.

However, this new discovery indicates that there are water vapors on a much larger part of the moon than initially thought, with the data spanning between 1999 and 2015.

"The observation of water vapor on Ganymede, and on the later side of Europa, advances our understanding of the atmospheres of icy moons," said the study's sole author, Lorenz Roth of the Royal Institute of Technology, Space and Plasma Physics.

However, the discovery of a stable abundance of water at Europa is a little more surprising than its discovery at Ganymede, because Europa's surface temperatures are lower than Ganymede's.

And in May, a separate study found that the ice crust could actually contain pockets of water that could support life.

Two months later, scientists suggested that the robots might have to dig up to one foot of ice to find signs of life in the ocean.

Europa is slightly smaller than Earth's moon, and orbits Jupiter every 3.5 days.

It is believed to have an iron core and a rocky mantle, and the aforementioned ocean is made of salt water, like Earth's oceans.

The discovery uses ultraviolet observations of Europe from 1999, 2012, 2014, and 2015 using the Hubble Space Telescope's Photographic Spectroradiometer.

Europa reflects more sunlight than Ganymede, so its surface temperature is 60 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than Ganymede.

Scientists know that Europa contains a liquid ocean made of water that could be hospitable to humans.

In 2020, a British astronomer said it was "almost certain" that Europa was home to extraterrestrial beings, going so far as to suggest they were "octopus-like" creatures.

Separately that year, scientists found that Europa's ocean "contains all the ingredients for life".

And by discovering that water vapor is only present on part of the moon, it could help future space missions study Jupiter's satellite.

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