NASA Claims To Have Found Water Vapour Plumes On Jupiter’s Icy Moon, Europa

Today NASA hosted an online teleconference to reveal new findings and images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of Jupiter's icy moon, Europa.

The results of an observing campaign, which gave evidence of activity to the presence of a subsurface ocean on Europa, were presented.

Despite what most wanted to believe, and what was speculated in the media, the findings did not have anything to do with any extraterrestrial life.

However, William Sparks, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, claimed that the new findings may help to search for life on Europa.

NASA claims that, using the Hubble Space Telescope, it has discovered water vapour plumes. These plumes, which have appeared on the ice which covers the planet, and subsequently the subsurface ocean, will allow NASA to explore the ocean for organic chemicals, or life, without having to drill through the ice.

It was stressed that despite the exciting and 'surprising' findings, the team have been working at Hubble's limits. This means that they are remaining cautious of the findings, saying that they have not proven the existence of plumes, but found strong evidence.

The be all and end all is that the detection of water vapour plumes means that more quintessential research can be conducted. This means, as I know you all want to hear it, that finding evidence of extraterrestrial life, or 'aliens', may be done.

All of these findings are going to be published in the Astrophysical Journal next week.