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 ]