James Webb to study organic matter in Europe and Enceladus water vapor emissions

Possible results of spectroscopy of one of the water plumes in Europe, which supposedly consists of a mixture of hot water vapor and organics. This is an example of the data that a telescope can return to them. James Webb

In October 2018, it is planned to put into orbit a new generation infrared observatory - the James Webb Space Telescope. With a 6.5-meter diameter mirror and a tennis-screen-sized heat shield, this station should be the successor to the current most powerful Hubble telescope (mirror diameter 2.4 m). Not one earthly telescope can match its capabilities with the James Webb.

The objectives of the international project will be the search for exoplanets (with spectral lines of exoplanets and their satellites), the discovery of the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang inera of Reionization , and other goals. In June 2017, NASA published a list of 2100 first observational targets .

The list includes:

• Large asteroids
• Trojan asteroids
• Near Earth Objects
• Jupiter
• Saturn
• Uranus
• Neptune
• Europe and Enceladus
• Titanium
• Comet 260P and the still-undiscovered comet
• Kuiper belt objects and trans-Neptune objects
• Exoplanets
• Brown dwarfs
• Protostars, protostellar disks and young star objects
• Residual Disks and Photodissociation Areas
• Star clusters, star formation zones, planetary nebulae and galactic transients
• Featured Galaxies
• Clusters of galaxies
• High redshift quasars and the internal structure of galaxies
• Specific galaxy sites (deep fields)

As you can see, the satellite of Jupiter Europe and the satellite of Saturn Enceladus are included in the list of priority goals for the study of the telescope. James Webb. Now NASA has revealed in detail how the infrared station will perform spectroscopy of these two unique water worlds in our solar system.

The art rendering below shows how Enceladus might look like in a section - and where do those steam emissions from under the ice (plumes) that we observe through telescopes come from. A massive water ocean 65 km deep hides under an outer ice crust 5 km thick, and hydrothermal processes at the bottom of this ocean generate emissions from the surface that pierce the ice crust. The James Webb infrared spectrometer will study in detail the chemical composition of these emissions at Enceladus and Europe.



Previous scientific missions to study Enceladus by the Cassini-Hugens automatic interplanetary station and the Galileo spacecraft, as well as the Hubble telescope, have gathered evidence that these emissions on Enceladus and Europe may consist of water vapor and simple organic molecules, and their cause is geological processes that heat up huge oceans under the ice surface. NASA scientists believe that the detected chemical signatures may be of interest from the point of view of astrobiology, that is, from the point of view of studying cosmic life.

The experiment is led by Geronimo Villanueva from the Goddard Space Flight Center. His group intends to direct the near-infrared camera NIRCamfor shooting the surface of Europe in high resolution. A NIRSpec near-infrared spectrograph and a MIRI mid-infrared spectrograph will be sent to the area where a high geological activity area with water vapor emissions is detected for a thorough spectrographic study of the emissions. James Webb will accurately answer the question, what is their temperature and chemical composition. Is it really hot water vapor mixed with organic matter, as scientists suggest.


Enceladus is ten times smaller than Europe, therefore, shooting its surface with high resolution, unfortunately, is impossible. Nevertheless, the spectrograph will still be able to conduct a chemical analysis of the water emissions and the surface of the satellite. Most of its surface has already been mapped by the Cassini apparatus, which spent 13 years studying Saturn and its satellites.


Enceladus

NIRSpec can detect organic signatures such as methane, methanol and ethane - and confirm that emissions are indeed saturated with organic matter. This may be evidence of the existence of microbiological life in the oceans of satellites, or evidence of natural geological processes. Subsequently, these data will be useful to the spacecraft Europa Clipperthat will fly right up to Europe and find out if the satellite is really inhabited.