Newly released NASA images show possible water plumes erupting on Jupiter’s Europa moon.

The findings were presented by scientists Monday afternoon during a teleconference.

The images, taken by NASA’s Hubble space telescope, support previous Hubble observations that suggest the “icy moon” erupts with “high altitude water vapor plumes,” officials said.

NASA astrophysics director Paul Hertz said the finding increases “our confidence” that future missions to Europa may be able to sample its subsurface ocean without having to drill “into miles of ice.”

The plumes are estimated to rise to a height of approximately 200 kilometres before “raining material back down” onto the moon’s surface.

Europa’s “global” ocean contains twice as much water as Earth’s oceans, and is below a layer of extremely cold and hard ice.

A team led by William Sparks, of the Space Telescope Science Institute, spotted “finger-like projections” while observing Europa as it passed in front of Jupiter in 2014.

However, the scientists say they do not have evidence that shows definitively it’s water plumes they are observing.

“We remain cautious,” Sparks said during the teleconference.

It’s not the first time the Hubble space telescope has observed evidence of activity on Europa, one of Jupiter’s many moons.

In late 2013, NASA announced that the telescope had observed water vapour above the “frigid south polar region” of Europa. Scientists said it was the first “strong evidence of water plumes erupting off the moon’s surface.”

It’s been a big year for Jupiter itself. In July, NASA spacecraft Juno reached the planet, following a five-year voyage to begin its exploratory mission. Scientists believe that Jupiter formed shortly after the sun. Learning about its past, scientists say, may help to understand how the solar system, including Earth, developed.