Europa is one of Jupiter’s 95 moons. (Photo: NASA)
JAKARTA – NASA’s Juno spacecraft managed to discover the presence of oxygen on Europa, one of Jupiter’s 95 moons. Extraordinarily, the oxygen produced is 1,000 tons per day.
“That’s enough to keep a million humans breathing every day,” wrote NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the journal Nature Astronomy, reported by CBSNews, Wednesday (6/3/2024).
The size of Europa, according to NASA, is slightly smaller than Earth’s moon. However, like Earth, Europa is believed to have a rocky mantle and an iron core. The amount of oxygen found could impact the moon’s underground ocean, which is believed to contain twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans combined.
The findings above show Europa produces about 26 pounds of oxygen every second. Scientists previously estimated that Jupiter’s moon could produce more than 2,000 pounds of oxygen every second.
The latest estimate was made based on the amount of hydrogen released from Europa’s surface. The data was collected by Juno, which will pass by Europa in 2022. Juno was launched in 2011 and has been investigating Jupiter since 2016.
“Juno provides new capabilities to directly measure the composition of charged particles released from Europa’s atmosphere, and we can’t wait to take a deeper look behind the scenes at this fascinating water world,” said lead author James Szalay of Princeton University.
“But what we didn’t realize was that Juno’s observations would give us such tight constraints on the amount of oxygen produced on Europa’s icy surface.”
Even though Europa has oxygen, this moon will not be a safe place for humans. Because the radiation on Europa means astronauts in spacesuits cannot survive more than a day.
Nevertheless, NASA still plans to launch the Europa Clipper on October 10 2024. This vehicle will make detailed observations of Europa and investigate whether the icy moon is suitable for life.
NASA states that Europa may be the most promising place in the solar system to find an environment suitable for some form of life beyond Earth. ” Jupiter “is the best example of a gas giant we have, studying its history will help us understand the hundreds of giant planets we have discovered orbiting other stars,” wrote NASA.
(msf)
2024-03-06 03:59:57
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