{"id":237351,"date":"2026-05-18T18:10:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T23:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/reanalyzed-hubble-data-challenges-europa-plume-claims"},"modified":"2026-05-18T18:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T23:10:25","slug":"reanalyzed-hubble-data-challenges-europa-plume-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/reanalyzed-hubble-data-challenges-europa-plume-claims","title":{"rendered":"Reanalyzed Hubble data challenges Europa plume claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/reanalyzed-hubble-data-challenges-europa-plume-claims2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Dr. Kurt Retherford: \u201cThe new data has made us reconsider the strength of the previous paper\u2019s conclusion regarding water vapor plumes.\u201d [ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.labroots.com\/trending\/space\/30560\/reanalyzed-hubble-data-challenges-europa-plume-claims-2\">https:\/\/www.labroots.com\/trending\/space\/30560\/reanalyzed-hub\u2026e-claims-2<\/a>](<a href=\"https:\/\/www.labroots.com\/trending\/space\/30560\/reanalyzed-hubble-data-challenges-europa-plume-claims-2\">https:\/\/www.labroots.com\/trending\/space\/30560\/reanalyzed-hub\u2026e-claims-2<\/a>) <\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>What can the vapor plumes on Jupiter\u2019s moon Europa teach scientists about the small moon\u2019s atmosphere? This is what a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aanda.org\/articles\/aa\/full_html\/2026\/05\/aa59406-26\/aa59406-26.html\">recent study<\/a> published in <em>Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics<\/em> hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the origins of Europa\u2019s vapor plumes. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the geological activity occurring on Europa and how its subsurface ocean could influence the small moon\u2019s fragile and thin atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>For the study, the researchers analyzed data obtained from NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope in 1999 and between 2012 and 2020 that displayed evidence of water vapor plumes from Europa and a hydrogen exosphere. An exosphere is the uppermost layer of an atmosphere and is where the atmosphere thins out and merges with the vacuum of space.<\/p>\n<p>This study builds on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.1247051\">2014 study<\/a> published in <em>Science<\/em> from some of these same researchers that explored evidence of plume activity at Europa\u2019s south pole. Now, this most recent study used a series of computer models to ascertain the accuracy of past Hubble data and from the 2014 study. In the end, the researchers discovered that while evidence of the hydrogen exosphere was present, evidence of water vapor plumes was not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Kurt Retherford: \u201cThe new data has made us reconsider the strength of the previous paper\u2019s conclusion regarding water vapor plumes.\u201d [ https:\/\/www.labroots.com\/trending\/space\/30560\/reanalyzed-hub\u2026e-claims-2](https:\/\/www.labroots.com\/trending\/space\/30560\/reanalyzed-hub\u2026e-claims-2) What can the vapor plumes on Jupiter\u2019s moon Europa teach scientists about the small moon\u2019s atmosphere? This is what a recent study published in Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics hopes to address as a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":706,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/706"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}