Swimming might be valuable in the solar system. Interesting, right? According to NASA researchers, the interior of Jupiter’s moon – Europa, should be able to support life. Everyone suspected that its waters beneath the icy shell that are also warm might be able to sustain life.
As per scientists, they used data from the Galileo mission in order to model the composition and the physical characteristics of Europa, like its subsurface ocean. And they found something exciting – it’s waters are not as acidic as they previously thought.
How can the moon be habitable?
The lead researcher Mohit Melwani Daswani stated: “Our simulations, coupled with data from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing chloride on Europa’s surface, suggests that the water most likely became chloride rich. In other words, its composition became more like oceans on Earth. We believe that this ocean could be quite habitable for life.”
However, Europa might not be the only wet world out there. There are at least two other major moons of Jupiter, called Callisto and Ganymede, that have ocean layers. The moon of Saturn, Enceladus, also has a mysterious sea and organic compounds.
A professor of geology, Steve Mojzsis, from the University of Colorado, stated that the chemistry that takes place within these bodies is amazing, “but what reliable flow of electrons could be used by alien life to power itself in the cold, dark depths?”. He said that an essential aspect of making a world habitable is the ability to maintain these chemicals. And the icy moons don’t really have this ability, so researchers need to test them on their future missions. There is one mission coming up soon, and we’re hoping we will find out more then.
