Jupiter’s moon Europa could be sustaining alien life by moving oxygen through ‘chaos terrains’, scientists say

‘It’s enticing to think of some kind of aerobic organisms living just under the ice,’ says Nasa research scientist Steven Vance

(NASA JPL)

Jupiter’s moon Europa could be sustaining alien life, scientists believe.

Salt water in the shell of Europa could be transporting oxygen to an ocean of liquid water that could sustain living organisms.

“Our research puts this process into the realm of the possible,” said lead researcher Marc Hesse, a professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences Department of Geological Sciences.

“It provides a solution to what is considered one of the outstanding problems of the habitability of the Europa subsurface ocean.”

Europa, the sixth largest moon in the Solar System and the smallest of the four moons orbiting Jupiter, is a favourite possibility for alien life because scientists have detected oxygen, water, and other chemicals that could produce nutrients.

However, its 15 mile-thick icy shell blocks the water from oxygen that is generated by sunlight hitting Jupiter’s surface; and if life, as we understand it, exists in the ocean it needs to be able to access oxygen.

Professor Hesse believes that the most plausible scenario is that oxygen is carried by salt water. ‘Chaos terrains’ – highly disrupted area of the moon’s topography – could be formed above partially melted regions of the ice barrier where oxygen from the surface can interact with it.

This creates a small window where pores in the ice widen, allowing brine to pass through before sealing up, similar to a bulge of water passing through a hose pipe after a blockage.

Moreover, the amount of oxygen could be on par with the amount of oxygen in Earth’s oceans today.

“It’s enticing to think of some kind of aerobic organisms living just under the ice,” co-author Steven Vance, a research scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said. It is possible that Nasa’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission, set to launch in 2024, could shed further light on this possibility.

The study was recently published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

In 2018, scientists also announced there is a water plume coming out of Europa which could give greater insight into the activities of the moon’s mysterious ocean.

“If plumes exist, and we can directly sample what’s coming from the interior of Europa, then we can more easily get at whether Europa has the ingredients for life,” Robert Pappalardo, Europa Clipper project scientist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said at the time. “That’s what the mission is after. That’s the big picture.”

The Clipper mission will be using radars to see below the ice and gather information about the water’s composition. If there is a balance between acidic and alkaline chemicals, that could be a stronger indication that life may have evolved there.