The Jupiter system serves as a kind of scaled-down version of the solar system and is therefore of interest to scientists and especially astrobiologists. Oceans containing alien biological life on Earth may be hiding beneath the ice that forms the surface of Jupiter’s large moons. NASA’s Galileo instrument also detected oxygen production on Jupiter’s moon Europa. A new study by the Juno probe has strengthened scientists’ belief that the ocean may receive oxygen this month.

Galileo’s data from more than 20 years ago provided a wide range of estimates of the amount of oxygen produced by Europe’s ice sheet. From a few kilograms to a ton of oxygen could fly off the surface of this moon per second. The oxygen on Europa comes from bombardment of its surface by charged particles from Jupiter; This moon is at the center of the gas giant’s radiation belts. The radiation splits the water molecule (the moon’s surface ice) into hydrogen and oxygen. The probes’ sensors capture ions of these elements and determine the intensity of their flow.

The Jovian Auroral Scattering Experiment (JADE) instrument on the modern probe “Juno” was able to collect data on charged particles from the satellite during a flyby 354 km above Europa on September 29, 2022. As the study authors noted in an article recently published in the journal Nature AstronomyThe analysis found that oxygen production in Europe was 12 kg per second. This is enough to provide enough oxygen for one million people to breathe for a day. We should also add that the devices cannot detect oxygen directly. Evaluation is done by recording atomic hydrogen particles.

“When NASA’s Galileo mission flew over Europa, it opened our eyes to Europa’s complex and dynamic interactions with its environment. Juno provided a new opportunity to directly measure the composition of charged particles emitted from Europa’s atmosphere, taking us behind the curtain of this fascinating aquatic world.” We couldn’t wait to take another look. – name the authors of the work. “But what we didn’t realize was that Juno observations gave us such tight limits on the amount of oxygen produced on Europa’s icy surface.”

Oxygen production is one of many nuances that NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will investigate when it arrives in the Jupiter system in 2030 (the probe is expected to launch in October 2024). The probe will be equipped with a complex set of nine scientific instruments to determine whether Europa has conditions suitable for life. Even now it is clear that some oxygen enters the subglacial ocean. Biological life may exist there. However, “Juno” has still exhausted its scientific potential, and although its main scientific work has been completed, this device will be put at the disposal of scientists.