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WEKU
WEKU
Bill Chappell

A source of carbon — a building block of life — is found on Jupiter's moon Europa

New analysis has found a source of carbon within Europa, Jupiter's moon that is believed to hold massive amounts of liquid water. This view of the moon was created from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

In an intriguing breakthrough, astronomers have concluded that carbon, an essential component of life on Earth, is also present within Europa, Jupiter's ice-covered moon that's believed to hold huge oceans of liquid salt water beneath its icy surface.

The findings come from analyzing images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which found the carbon "likely originated in the subsurface ocean," according to a summary of two papers about the analysis.

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