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There may be life beneath Europa's icy shell: Researchers
Jupiter\'s moon Europa -- strongly believed to hide a deep ocean of salty liquid water beneath its icy shell -- can have the necessary balance of chemical energy for life even if the moon lacks volcanic hydrothermal activity, researchers have revealed.
Washington: Jupiter's moon Europa -- strongly believed to hide a deep ocean of salty liquid water beneath its icy shell -- can have the necessary balance of chemical energy for life even if the moon lacks volcanic hydrothermal activity, researchers have revealed.
Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, compared Europa's potential for producing hydrogen and oxygen with that of Earth through processes that do not directly involve volcanism.
The balance of these two elements is a key indicator of the energy available for life. The study found that the amounts would be comparable in scale. On both worlds, oxygen production is about 10 times higher than hydrogen production.
The work draws attention to the ways that Europa's rocky interior may be much more complex and possibly Earth-like than people typically think.
“We're studying an alien ocean using methods developed to understand the movement of energy and nutrients in Earth's own systems.
The cycling of oxygen and hydrogen in Europa's ocean will be a major driver for Europa's ocean chemistry and any life there, just it is on Earth,” explained Steve Vance, planetary scientist at JPL and lead author.
As part of the study, the researchers calculated how much hydrogen could potentially be produced in Europa's ocean as seawater reacts with rock in a process called serpentinisation.
In this process, water percolates into spaces between mineral grains and reacts with the rock to form new minerals, releasing hydrogen in the process.
New cracks expose fresh rock to seawater, where more hydrogen-producing reactions can take place.
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