NASA'S James Webb Telescope Detects First Evidence Of Carbon On Jupiter's Moon

Astronomers used the data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and identified carbon dioxide in a specific region on the icy surface of Europa.

In a groundbreaking discovery, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has detected the presence of carbon dioxide on Europa, one of Jupiter's icy moons. Astronomers used the data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and identified carbon dioxide in a specific region on the icy surface of Europa, as per a NASA release.  As per Space.com, the team was able to use observations made in infrared with the JWST's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument to determine that the carbon molecules were not delivered to Europa via meteorite impacts or other external sources.

Notably, this discovery has important implications for the potential habitability of Europa's ocean.

Scientists were aware that a salty ocean of liquid water with a rocky seafloor lay beneath the icy shell of Europa. However, they had not confirmed if that ocean contained the chemicals needed for life, particularly carbon.