Lifeboat Foundation

Jupiter’s moon Europa — a giant ice ball thought to hide twice as much liquid water as there is on Earth — just became an even hotter target in the search for aliens.

Scientists on Monday unveiled new photographs from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, and they likely show ‘fingers’ of water vapour squirting out of Europa’s hidden ocean and into space.

The grainy Hubble photos, taken in 2014, suggest water plumes occasionally shoot 125 miles (200 km) into space, then rain back down on the surface. If true, this would be Hubble’s second time catching Europa’s water plumes since 2012.