Have you ever looked up at the stars and wondered if there’s life beyond Earth? Scientists have been asking that same question for a long time.
They’re especially interested in one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, and for good reason.
It’s slightly smaller than our moon and it might just be one of the most promising places to search for alien life.
A team of scientists from Arizona State University (ASU) recently published a new study in the journal Science Advances that gives us a whole new perspective on this icy moon.
Europa is thought to be made up of different layers: a shell of ice, a saltwater ocean, a rocky layer, and a metallic core.
What makes it really exciting for scientists is that its ocean comes into contact with the rocky layer. That could make it possible for the kind of chemical reactions that are necessary for life.
Kevin Trinh, Carver Bierson, and Joe O’Rourke of ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration used a computer program to investigate what could have happened if Europa started off with very low temperatures.
Their results might make you rethink everything you thought you knew about this moon.
One of their key findings was about how Europa’s ocean could have been formed. They found that if Europa was made from hydrated rocks, which contain hydrogen and oxygen, then the interior of the moon could have gotten hot enough to release water from these rocks to form the ocean and ice shell.
The other major revelation from their study is about Europa’s core. A lot of scientists thought that the core, made of metal, formed while Europa was still forming or just after. But the ASU team had a different idea.
They suggested that the core might not have started forming until billions of years after Europa was formed, if it even formed at all.
This means that Europa could still be evolving, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities for future research. The formation of a metallic core requires high temperatures, so whether or not Europa’s core exists is tied to how much heat the moon was able to generate.
The idea of Europa as a cold mixture of ice, rock, and metal, was a starting point for this study. However, certain processes that could be key for life, like metallic core formation, seafloor volcanism, and ongoing rock-water geochemistry, all require a hot interior.
Europa, being a small moon, may not have had enough energy to sustain these processes, making its potential for life unclear.
Furthermore, the rate of Europa’s evolution could have been affected by the amount of heat available from the radioactive decay of a particular isotope of aluminum. Gravitational interactions with Jupiter and other moons, also known as tidal heating, could have influenced how quickly Europa’s interior separated into distinct layers.
This research also suggests that there may not be a lot of volcanic activity on Europa’s seafloor, which could affect its potential to host life. But we need more data to be sure.
In a few years, we might just have that data. In 2024, NASA is planning to launch a spacecraft called Europa Clipper, which is expected to reach Europa by 2030. The main goal of this mission is to find out if Europa could have the right conditions for life.
The findings of this study could prove crucial in interpreting the data that will be collected by the Europa Clipper. As O’Rourke says, “Europa is not just a wet, baby Earth. It is its own special world, full of mysteries to unravel.”
Stay tuned for more exciting discoveries about this intriguing moon.
Source: Arizona State University.
