NASA tracking oxygen production on one of Jupiter’s moons
Scientists with NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter have calculated the rate of oxygen being produced at one of the gas giant’s largest moons.
Europa, described by astrobiologists in a press release as an “ice-covered” Jovian moon, was found to be generating 1,000 tons of oxygen every 24 hours.
According to NASA, that’s enough to keep one million humans breathing for a day.
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The findings, published on Monday in “Nature Astronomy,” were derived by measuring hydrogen outgassing from Europa’s surface using equipment from the Juno orbiter’s Jovian Auroral Distributions Experiment instrument.
“The paper’s authors estimate the amount of oxygen produced to be around 26 pounds every second,” the NASA release said, citing the findings in “Nature Astronomy.” “Previous estimates range from a few pounds to over 2,000 pounds per second…scientists believe that some of the oxygen produced in this manner could work its way into the moon’s subsurface ocean as a possible source of metabolic energy.”
It is widely believed that Europa, which is the fourth largest of Jupiter’s 95 known moons, contains a “vast internal ocean of salty water” beneath its icy surface. Scientists are “curious” about the potential for life-supporting conditions existing below the surface, NASA says.
And water isn’t the only thing that’s piquing astrobiologists’ interests; Europa orbits in the middle of Jupiter’s radiation belts, which increases the possibility of particles from the gas giant bombarding the Europa’s icy surface and finding their way into the moon’s subterranean ocean.
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“Europa is like an ice ball slowly losing its water in a flowing stream, except in this case, the stream is a fluid of ionized particles swept around Jupiter by its extraordinary magnetic field,” JADE scientist and study co-author Jamey Szalay said. “When these ionized particles impact Europa, they break up the water-ice molecule by molecule on the surface to produce hydrogen and oxygen.
“In a way, the entire ice shell is being continuously eroded by waves of charged particles washing upon it,” Szalay added.
According to the Juno mission’s principal investigator Scott Bolton, more moon flybys on Europa and Jupiter’s “volcano-festooned” moon Io are in store for the future, as are the first exploration of the gas giant’s close ring and polar atmosphere.
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NASA also says that oxygen production will be one of “many facets” that the space agency’s Europa Clipper mission will investigate when it arrives at Jupiter in 2030.
The Europa Clipper mission will have nine sophisticated instruments to determine if the moon has conditions that could be suitable for life, NASA said.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the Juno mission.
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