Galileo Shows There May Be Liquid Oceans on Jupiter’s Moons

The Galileo spacecraft has produced new evidence showing there may be liquid oceans beneath the icy crusts of two of Jupiter’s moons, raising the possibility of life beyond Earth. Scientists said the spacecraft that has been orbiting Jupiter since 1995 has picked up data showing Europa and Callisto, two of the planet’s moons, perturb its magnetic fields.

In a study published in today’s Nature, Krishan Khurana and colleagues from UCLA, along with scientists from Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said neither of the moons has its own magnetic field, so the phenomena “may be best explained by the presence of salty liquid-water oceans.” Scientists believe that life may exist or have existed in subsurface oceans.

Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II