Scientists are pretty sure that Europa has an amount of water, perhaps twice as much as all of Earth’s oceans. Jupiter’s strong gravitational field constantly tugs on Europa as it orbits its parent planet every three and a half days, compressing and bending the moon’s interior, and generating heat through tidal forces. These forces could drive hydrothermal vents where Europa’s ocean floor meets the moon’s rocky interior.
That’s what separates Europa, Earth and Saturn’s small moon Enceladus — which also has a buried ocean and explosive plumes — from every other body in the solar system, according to Cynthia Phillips, a planetary geologist and staff scientist for the Europa Clipper project at JPL.
“On these worlds, you have an ocean layer on top of a rock layer,” she said. “This is important because that is what we have here on Earth, and at the bottom of Earth’s oceans, where the ocean layer is in contact with the rocks, all kinds of interesting chemical reactions and hydrothermal systems can occur.”
Scientists’ findings suggest that the interior of Jupiter’s moon Europa may consist of an iron core, surrounded by a rocky mantle in direct contact with the ocean beneath the icy crust. New research models how internal heat fuels seafloor volcanoes.
Image source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Michael Carroll
At the bottom of the Earth’s oceans, such as in Europe, organisms must rely on an energy source other than the Sun. Hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans provide a warm environment teeming with primitive life forms, even in extreme conditions at depths of several miles.
“We don’t expect this type of fish and whales, but we are interested to know whether Europa could support simple life – single-celled organisms,” Pappalardo said.
Of course, Europa Clipper wouldn’t be able to drill dozens of miles to reach these theoretical vents. Scientists will have to infer their existence from other data. Direct detection of any organism on Europa will have to wait for a future mission. Scientists do not believe life could survive on Europa’s surface because it is bathed in intense radiation from Jupiter’s magnetosphere.
“If there was life on the surface of Europa, in this habitable environment that we are exploring, it would be under the ocean, so we would not be able to see it,” Buratti said. Organic chemicals that are precursors of life. “There are things in dreams that we can observe, like DNA or RNA, but we don’t expect to see them.”
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