We Might Bump Into Life Just Under the Surface on Europa

What is needed to have life at another world? Astrobiologists inform you need warmth, water, and something for life to consume. If life is there, it’ll leave signs of itself in the form of organic molecules named amino acids. Now, NASA researchers believe that those “signatures” of life—or potential life—could exist just under the icy surfaces of Enceladus and Europa.

If future explorations in fact find those signatures, it’ll make a major stride in the search for life somewhere else in the Solar System—and beyond. That’s one of the reasons why robotic missions will someday land on those moons—in search of the signs of life. The next mission to Europa, named Europa Clipper, will orbit but won’t land on that tiny moon. Nonetheless, it will look for environments suitable for life. So, that’s a small beginning. There’s also another proposed mission named Enceladus Orbilander. It could launch in the year 2038 and spend a year checking out that moon.

The Search for Life Signs

Researchers strongly suspect there’s a warmish salty ocean beneath the ices of both Enceladus and Europa. Furthermore, they are possibly heated by tidal stresses. So, those are two of the fixings for life right there. There could be most probably something to feed that life too.

If life does in fact exist, it could “imprint” its presence in the form of amino acids, nucleic acids, and other organic molecules in the surface ice. Life perhaps wouldn’t exist right on the surface, mostly because of radiation and the lack of atmosphere at those worlds. That makes the near sub-surface ice a suitable place to look for sign of that life. That will necessitate a little digging to find the mark. How deep? It wouldn’t be far, according to Alexander Pavlov of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

“Based on our experiments, the ‘safe’ sampling depth for amino acids on Europa is almost 8 inches (around 20 centimeters) at high latitudes of the trailing hemisphere (hemisphere opposite to the direction of Europa’s motion around Jupiter) in the area where the surface hasn’t been disturbed much by meteorite impacts,” Pavlov stated. “Subsurface sampling is not required for the detection of amino acids on Enceladus – these molecules will survive radiolysis (breakdown by radiation) at any location on the Enceladus surface less than a tenth of an inch (under a few millimeters) from the surface.”