Life on Jupiter's moon? NASA's James Webb spots a building blocks on Europa

The latest observations of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have hinted at the presence of a building block of life – carbon – inside the global ocean on Europa, one of the icy moons of Jupiter.

The James Webb Space Telescope was used by two independent teams of astronomers to observe the frozen surface of Europa. Each analysis of the detections of the space observatory revealed the presence of abundant carbon dioxide within a specific area of the frigid terrain.

The two studies described the findings which were published in the journal Science on September 21.

“On Earth, life likes chemical diversity — the more diversity, the better. We’re carbon-based life. Understanding the chemistry of Europa’s ocean will help us determine whether it’s hostile to life as we know it, or if it might be a good place for life,” stated Geronimo Villanueva, lead author of the first study and planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.

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Apart from Earth, Europa is among the several ocean worlds present in our solar system where scientists feel life could exist.

Europa has a thick ice shell beneath which a subsurface global ocean exists, which may contain twice the amount of water present on the oceans of the planet.

However environments, which are suitable for the existence of life, require more than water: an energy source and a supply of organic molecules, according to NASA.

After Webb's data revealed that carbon is present on Europa’s surface, an analysis was conducted by the researchers to understand if it was delivered by meteorites, or if it originated from the internal ocean.

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In the observations, carbon dioxide was seen concentrated in a region of “chaos terrain” on Europa known as Tara Regio. The geologically young area is filled with ice which has been resurfaced and disrupted, which further suggests that the material was exchanged between the surface and the ocean.

Carbon dioxide is not stable on Europa's surface

Carbon dioxide is not stable on the surface of Europa, which further led the two teams to the same conclusion, that it originated from the ocean.

“We now think that we have observational evidence that the carbon we see on Europa’s surface came from the ocean. That’s not a trivial thing. Carbon is a biologically essential element,” stated Samantha Trumbo, lead author of the second study and a 51 Pegasi B Fellow at Cornell University, in a statement.

The Hubble Space Telescope had earlier spotted ocean-derived salt in the same region. “We think this implies that the carbon probably has its ultimate origin in the internal ocean,” said Trumbo.

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