ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996             TAG: 9608140046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A11  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

SIGNS OF WATER SEEN ON MOON OF JUPITER

More close-up pictures of Jupiter's satellite Europa, with its fractured icy crust resembling the pack ice of a polar sea, were made public Tuesday, and scientists said the images provided even stronger evidence that the large moon has had, and may still have, a global ocean, meaning it could have the liquid water necessary to support life.

Europa, about the size of Earth's moon, has long been considered one of the few places in the solar system that might harbor some primitive form of life. The discovery of evidence of possible life on early Mars, announced last week, has encouraged planetary scientists to look more deeply into Europa's watery prospects, as captured in photographs taken by the Galileo spacecraft.

At a news conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Galileo project scientists showed pictures the spacecraft took as it flew within 96,000 miles of Europa about a month ago.

The pictures covered an area the size of the United States west of the Mississippi River, a panorama of water ice, small craters, bright scars of former geyser eruptions and many crisscrossing dark bands, which scientists dubbed ``the great interstate highway system of Europa.''

One of the mission scientists, Dr. Ronald Greeley of Arizona State University, said the icy crust showed widespread signs of having been broken up like ice floes and then brought together again like a jigsaw puzzle. ``This shows the ice crust has been, or still is, lubricated from below by warm ice or maybe even liquid water,'' he said.

If the scientists are seeing evidence of slushy ice or liquid water, Greeley said, ``these are places that would be environmentally favorable for life.''

In other mission results announced Tuesday, a new picture of one of the other major Jovian moons, Io, showed a huge blue volcanic plume rising about 60 miles into space from a region called Ra Patera.

Io is apparently the most volcanically active object in the solar system. The blue color suggests that the plume is composed of tiny particles of sulfur dioxide ``snow'' condensing from the gases.

Dr. Andrew Ingersoll, an atmospheric physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, examined new pictures of Jupiter itself.

The Great Red Spot, a kind of perpetual storm on Jupiter, is maintaining its expanse, about the diameter of Earth, and counterclockwise winds of 250 miles an hour. A perplexing question is what supplies the energy that keeps these dynamic processes going. The sun is presumably too far away to account for it.

Scientists have theorized that gigantic thunderstorms could be at least partly responsible for this energy, helping to generate even larger storms like the Great Red Spot. And Ingersoll said he had now detected in the new pictures many thunderstorm clouds towering 30 miles above the other Jovian clouds.

LENGTH: Medium:   60 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:   AP A photo of The Great Red Spot, a kind of perpetual 
          storm on Jupiter, is displayed as scientists discuss the latest 
          findings.