Dhaka, Feb. 2 -- NASA scientists have discovered ammonia-bearing compounds on the surface of Jupiter's icy moon Europa, shedding new light on the moon's subsurface ocean, according to a recent analysis of decades-old space data.

The breakthrough comes from a re-examination of information collected by NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which orbited Jupiter from 1989 until 2003. Researchers created a composite image of a 400-kilometre-wide area on Europa using the spacecraft's solid-state imaging camera, revealing dark, crossing bands on the moon's surface that indicate cracks in the ice.

Data from Galileo's Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) was overlaid on the image. Red pixels mark areas where ammonia compounds were detected, while pur...