Water jets shoot from Jupiter's south pole

American scientists said on December 13 that observations obtained from the Hubble space telescope detected water jets erupting from the south pole of Europa, Jupiter's icy moon.

Graphical simulation of water jets shooting out from Europa's south pole. Photo: NASA

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, the team detected a 200km-high plume of water vapor shooting out from Europa's south polar region in December 2012.

Kurt Retherford, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute, said that if confirmed, the new discovery would have a huge impact on scientists' assessments that Europa has the basic conditions for life to exist like Earth. The phenomenon of water jets erupting from the south pole of this planet has only been seen at a single point.

Meanwhile, Hubble's observations of the same area in October 1999 and November 2012 did not detect this. Previously, the Galileo spacecraft passed Europa nine times in the late 1990s, but also did not detect water jets.

The team of scientists believes that the water vapor could be escaping from cracks in the ice at Europa's south polar region, which could open up due to gravitational stress at its furthest point from Jupiter.

As Europa nears Jupiter, it will gain stress, the poles will crackle and the cracks will close. Then, as Europa moves away from Jupiter, the crackling will stop and the poles will move outward. The cracks will then open. The jets are most likely the result of frictional heat from the ice blocks rubbing together, or they could be a coincidental comet impact.

Similar jets have also been detected on Saturn's moon Enceladus, which has 12 times less gravity than Europa, and can shoot its jets farther into space.

Scientists are continuing to monitor the phenomenon before announcing new discoveries globally.

According to Vietnam+