WEBVTT FILE

1
00:00:00.033 --> 00:00:04.233
[ Music ]

2
00:00:04.233 --> 00:00:08.300
Europa is one of the largest moons of Jupiter,
and we believe that Europa has

3
00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:12.800
a subsurface ocean tens to hundreds
of kilometers thick

4
00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:18.500
And so this ocean may be one of the best places
to search for life in the Solar System.

5
00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:22.600
There’s been three space missions that have
provided evidence for

6
00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:24.733
Europa harboring liquid water.

7
00:00:24.733 --> 00:00:30.366
The first one is Voyager in the late 70's,
the second one is the Galileo mission

8
00:00:30.366 --> 00:00:36.000
in the late 90's, and most recently Hubble,
which detected plume-like emission

9
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.800
from hydrogen and oxygen which is closely
related to the existence of water

10
00:00:40.800 --> 00:00:42.800
beneath its surface.

11
00:00:42.800 --> 00:00:47.533
These plumes may be directly ejected through
cracks in the surface of the moon,

12
00:00:47.533 --> 00:00:50.366
and therefore what we are seeing in water vapor plumes

13
00:00:50.366 --> 00:00:54.600
is the actual ocean water from the subsurface of the moon.

14
00:00:54.600 --> 00:01:00.133
As these plume particles are ejected to space,
solar radiation is going to excite these

15
00:01:00.133 --> 00:01:06.033
water particles, creating vibrational modes.
Now, these vibrational modes are signatures

16
00:01:06.033 --> 00:01:10.900
that can be detected at infrared wavelengths by
the Keck Observatory.

17
00:01:10.900 --> 00:01:17.166
So, we observe Europa on seventeen dates.
What we found is that the majority

18
00:01:17.166 --> 00:01:22.900
of observations have no presence of water;
however, on one of those dates

19
00:01:22.900 --> 00:01:27.100
we detected water. We detected H2O.

20
00:01:27.100 --> 00:01:32.933
In the past, Hubble provided indirect measurements
of water by detecting hydrogen and oxygen,

21
00:01:32.933 --> 00:01:37.300
but now we have directly detected water
for the first time.

22
00:01:37.300 --> 00:01:40.166
Both the Webb Telescope and the Europa Clipper
mission will give us

23
00:01:40.166 --> 00:01:46.466
us a much more detailed picture of the surface
of Europa, its cracks and crevices,

24
00:01:46.466 --> 00:01:51.200
detailed pictures of the water vapor, as well as
other molecules that may also

25
00:01:51.200 --> 00:01:54.166
be emanating from the subsurface of Europa.

26
00:01:54.166 --> 00:01:59.433
So both of these missions will give us a great
picture of whether Europa is truly habitable.

27
00:01:59.433 --> 00:02:07.466
[ Music ]