A James Webb Space Telescope Investigation of Carbon Dioxide Signatures on Europa

Carbon dioxide is an important biomarker and plays a valuable role in the search for potentially habitable celestial objects. The purpose of this study was to examine new data from the James Webb Space Telescope to analyze the presence and abundance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. If the chemical element was detected, it could imply the existence of processes that are necessary for a habitable environment. The method of detection was based on the irradiance spectrum of carbon dioxide gas, which was modeled and compared to the spectrum obtained by the telescope. The Pearson correlation coefficient was utilized to compare the measurements and the model. Moreover, several statistical tests were performed to investigate the presence, the abundance, and the distribution of carbon dioxide across Europa. The study found statistically significant correlations between the measured irradiance spectra and the model in only one location on the moon's leading hemisphere, named Tara Regio. This suggests that carbon dioxide in gaseous form does exist on Europa, however, it is primarily located in the leading hemisphere and seems to be concentrated in this region. It was estimated that there is approximately a ten times higher concentration in Tara Regio than in the rest of the leading hemisphere. This result confirms conclusions drawn from previous studies that used older observations from the telescope and only detected carbon dioxide ice.