Europa may have twice as much water as Earth.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
NASA scientists are gearing up for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa to investigate for any signs of extra-terrestrial life. Scientists believe that Europa could the best place to look for signs of life beyond Earth.
NASA’s Galileo mission yielded strong evidence that Europa, about the size of Earth’s moon, has an ocean beneath a frozen crust of unknown thickness. If proven to exist, this global ocean could have more than twice as much water as Earth.
“With abundant salt water, a rocky sea floor, and the energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa could be the best place in the solar system to look for present day life beyond our home planet,” NASA had said earlier.
According to experts, the use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) may help NASA in the mission.
Some scientists believe that the chance of single-cell organisms existing in the waters of Europa is high considering the peculiar nature of it.
A scientist was quoted by tecake.in as “we don’t care where we find life elsewhere in Europa, but just imagine what that says about us and life if we found out whether life exists at other places in the solar system.”
NASA has selected 9 science instruments for a mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa, to investigate whether the mysterious icy moon could harbor conditions suitable for life. The mission will place a spacecraft in orbit around Jupiter in order to perform a detailed investigation of the moon.
A surface-to-subsurface robotic system called Icy-moon Cryovolcano Explorer (ICE) has been developed by the scientists for the mission that is expected to shed light on the moon and its environment.