Geysers on Europe are the exception rather than the rule.

About Europe, the satellite of Jupiter, does not speak and does not write just lazy. And indeed - Europe has a large size, covered with water ice, under which, as scientists believe, there can be a huge ocean with liquid water. And liquid water is one of the essential attributes for the appearance of life (in any case, in the form in which we know it).

Evidence of the presence of liquid water under the ice was obtained last year, when NASA, with the help of the Hubble orbital telescope, recorded the appearance of huge geysers (altitude up to 200 km), ejecting a mass of liquid water into space.
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Immediately, the supporters of the expedition to Europe became more active, projects of a robotic station appeared that could penetrate the ice-crust through the ice crust.


Previously recorded clouds of water vapor near the South Pole of Europe

Since then, scientists have tried to re-discover the geysers on Europe, directing Hubble to the satellite. Hubble received images of Europe in January, February, November and December 2014. And in no one snapshot geysers no longer manifest. The research teams of not only NASA, but also other organizations could no longer detect any evidence of the release of liquid water in Europe. Images from Galileo, which was studied by Jupiter and his companions in 1995-2003, also did not give any information about the existence of geysers - in the pictures they simply do not exist.

But on other satellites, for example, Enceladus (Saturn's satellite), the release of liquid water occurs with enviable regularity. This satellite also has an ocean of liquid water (in any case, everything testifies to this). Scientists believe that if the release of liquid water in Europe would occur regularly, they would have been detected. Modern technology allows you to do this without difficulty - as mentioned above, on Enceladus geysers are fixed regularly.

Moreover, scientists could not detect the presence of water in the space next to Europe - and in the case of Enceladus, water is detected without any problems. And the UVIS tool of another station, Cassini, suggests that traces of water near Europe, found earlier, are a consequence of volcanic activity on Io, another satellite of Jupiter. It may well be that the atmosphere of Europe is 100 times more sparse than previously thought.


Geysers on Enceladus

Nevertheless, all of the above does not mean that there are no geysers of liquid water in Europe. Perhaps the emissions are just smaller than those on Enceladus. In this case, their registration with current equipment becomes very difficult, if at all possible, to do.

But it is already clear that geysers in Europe are the exception, not the rule. An analysis of images of Europe taken by Hubble in 1999 and 2012 confirms this. There are no geysers in these images.

Now scientists have announced a "hunting season" for geysers in Europe, which will continue until April 2015. It is likely that evidence of the release of liquid water by Europe will be discovered once more (or even more). So it only remains to wait.