Europa's plumes make Jupiter moon a prime candidate for life

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new look at old data is giving scientists a fresh reason to view Europa, a moon of Jupiter, as a leading candidate in the search for life beyond Earth, with evidence of water plumes shooting into space. A bend in Europa's magnetic field observed by NASA's Galileo spacecraft during a 1997 flyby appears to have been caused by a geyser gushing through its frozen crust from a subsurface ocean, researchers who reexamined the Galileo data reported on Monday. Galileo was passing some 124 miles (200 kilometers) above Europa's surface when it apparently flew through the plume.

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