Water found in icy moon atmospheres

In July, a study  led by SPP researchers revealed that water vapor is present in the atmosphere of Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons and the largest moon in our solar system. The water molecules are liberated from the icy surface (sublimated) when the sun warms the ice around noon. 

Now SPP researcher Lorenz Roth has used similar data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the same technique to search for water at Europa, neighboring moon to Ganymede in its orbit around Jupiter. Water was also found at Europa but only one on side of the moon. The results were recently published in the Geophyiscal Research Letters  and promoted in press releases by ESA  and on the NASA Hubble website .