With NASA slated to explore Jupiter’s moon Europa sometime in the next decade, researchers are increasingly confident that the ocean on the celestial satellite “might be habitable.”
Speaking at the Goldschmidt 2020 Conference earlier this month, NASA researchers said they have developed a model that shows that Europe, the sixth largest moon in the Solar System, could support life.
“We were able to model the composition and physical properties of the core, the silicate layer and the ocean,” NASA researcher JPL and the study’s lead author, Mohit Melwani Daswani, said in a statement. “We found that different minerals lose water and volatiles at different depths and temperatures. We add these volatiles that are estimated to have been lost from the interior, and we found that they are consistent with the predicted mass of the current ocean, which means that they are probably present in the ocean. “
The research can be read here, but has not yet been peer-reviewed.
The ocean is under a dense layer of frozen crust that is believed to be at least six and up to 19 miles thick. The surface temperature in Europe is also exceptionally cold, at about -260 degrees Fahrenheit at the equator and -370 degrees Fahrenheit at the poles, according to Space.com.
While the ocean is believed to be warm, researchers are only learning that it probably formed due to minerals being decomposed by tidal forces or radioactive decay, according to Universe Today.
“In fact, it was thought that this ocean could still be quite sulfuric,” Daswani explained, “but our simulations, along with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing chloride on the surface of Europe, suggest that the water probably became rich in chloride”. In other words, its composition was more like Earth’s oceans. We believe this ocean could be quite habitable for life. “
In August 2019, NASA confirmed that it would launch a mission to Europe, a trek that could answer if the icy heavenly body could be habitable for humans and support life.
The Europa Clipper, which could launch as early as 2023 but has a basic commitment to a “launch preparation date of 2025”, will have a mass spectrometer on the ship, which is used to determine the mass of ions in a atom.
The mission of the solar-powered Clipper is expected to cost around $ 4 billion, according to NASA. The space agency has previously said the purpose of the mission will be to investigate whether Europa, the sixth-largest of Jupiter’s 79 known moons, “could harbor suitable conditions for life, honing our knowledge of astrobiology.”
A 2018 study expressed concern that Europa’s surface may be extremely porous, which could damage any probe that touches its surface.
In December 2019, a study suggested that if there is life in Europe, it would be indigenous to the moon and not related to humans.
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