NASA scientists, using the Hubble telescope, believe they have spotted water vapor plumes "erupting" off the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa.

The observation means that any future mission to Europa to find possible signs of life will not take as long as first thought, or involve drilling through miles of ice.

The plumes are estimated to rise about 125 miles in the air before, presumably, raining material back down onto Europa's surface.

NASA said: "Europa has a huge global ocean containing twice as much water as Earth's oceans, but it is protected by a layer of extremely cold and hard ice of unknown thickness.

"The plumes provide a tantalizing opportunity to gather samples originating from under the surface without having to land or drill through the ice."