I heard a while back that there may be life on Europa (one of Jupiter's moons). As i understand, Europa's surface is covered in ice and underneath the ice may be water very similar to the water on earth.... I heard that some believe that there may even be aquatic life on Europa. Does anyone have more in-depth info on the subject or a link or something? Cause as of right now, given the little info that I have, I think that it is possible and exciting to consider. What do you guys think?

Since we only have our planets evolution as a paradigm, the conventional notion would be that a fully aquatic life form probably would not be conducive to intelligent life. To over simplify why, there is essentially no need for tool making or innovation due to extreme climatological variation resulting in a limited intellectual development, or more properly put, a non-human intelligence.

Cetaceans may be intelligent and we simply are unable to recognize it, but unless they 'decide' to evolve into air breathing land creatures, they will never be a technically advanced species.....probably.

yes, but i never said anything about technically advanced life. I meant that it would most likely be fish. Just the thought of actually discovering life on another planet (or moon) seems very cool to me.

i wonder if they would make for good sushi

Europa info : http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/gem/

In the recent publication of Discover magazine, there are two articles that are interesting to what you brought up. One - the asteroid Ceres may actually have a mile deep "ocean" under a "muddy shell" ( Making Europa, and now an asteroid possible hosts of oceans ) and two - that it may be likely that life can develop in a freezing cold environment. ( Or at least, a long duration of freezing may be essential to the develop of life, notably rna ). Europa's surface is freezing, but bellow in the oceans, there may be thermal vents conducive to all kinds of chemistry.

At one time the Earth too was one big ice ball. So yes, Europa is a great place to look for life! I think its the best money we could spend. I'm just SO GLAD that nasa takes its sweet time getting to these projects. What could be more important? The butt end of Mercury of course. Ugh.

Yep, because Nasa are just sitting around on heaps of cash, twiddling their thumbs and throwing a dart at a sky map to see where they're going to go next. Every planet in this system is important for different reasons and very costly to explore and yet you still throw your toys out of the pram and demand they go on a probably fruitless search for "ayweans".

As for the OP, yes I've also heard that its Europa is a theoretical hotspot of life in our system - it has ice, therefore water, and the markings on the surface show that the moon is active, therefore heat being generated.



Ref

I believe one of the problems with exploring Europa is that we still haven't come up with a way of drilling down to the ocean without the risk of contamination.

NASA is being thorough and to see this other end of Mercury is amazing actually. It costs a lot of money, is done with amazing technology and already a mystery has presented itself in regards to the formation from an impact crater that has been discovered and that's what it's all about.

Yes Mercury is important. But what you can clearly infer from my post is that I believe Europa is more important to study ( hence your agrivation ? ).

Your arguement is skewed by an emotional filter that clearly has a distaste for people that may believe "ayweans" exist and that they are important enough to spend money on to find. Your fuse is quite short and your retort quite acrid.

Yet this post is clear in pointing out that I believe all the planets are important for study, however, I feel that the search for possible life trumps the study of planets that have no chance of life living on them at all. Something that surely we can live to disagree about in civil means.

Hence the name.

NASA doesn't get as much funding as you'd think. They seem to spend what they make effectively and do things slow and methodically.

I know we're all hungry for information, but you cant rush a project like a probe going to Europa. Firstly you have to design a probe that can make it to Europa, bore through the ice then beam back information, then you have to launch it at the right time.

Personally I think we might find something there, even if it's just organic compounds or microbes.

Why? Its not that they're not going to - they simply don't have the technology to do it, which as I stated, is being developed.



Nope, because I believe in aliens, but I don't have much time for people who think that Nasa are just there to fulfil their geeky wishes - the kind of people on this forum who say stuff like "Y DONT NASA GO 2 CYDONIA AND L@@K AT THE MARTAIN PYRAMIDS LOL" - Nasa are not there to go off on flights of sci fi whismy looking for alien life. That isn't why they get funded.

As I said before, going to Europe is in the pipeline, but your post seemed to suggested they had the capabilities and were just jetting off to whatever arbitrary destination they wanted without giving any thought as to why.



But it doesn't trump it, not yet - we don't have the means, financially or scientifically for that luxury. Lets just hope that the 21st century heralds proper research and funding and we get to see the manned exploration of the solar system in our lifetimes - I think thats something we can both agree on!

ha ha ha! Oh dear, its been a long week!

Fair enough. Onward to Europa!!!! But first I guess we can start with the moon and other fascinating places...

In all honesty, I would be happy with unintelligent life on other planets. At this point, finding life would be a much more positive step than where we are now.... Then we could expect to find intelligence somewhere else, once we have proven that it is possible.

I think we (or at least some of us) are proof that its possible - its just how widespread it is that we need to establish...

Worry or concern about human contamination of a satellite like Europa; is a good example of how self-contemptous humanity (by certain schools of thought) employ a affected esoteric philosophy of deference to the 'rights' of speculative "life"...or even of inorganic elements like whole planets (the 'mother-Earth thing) as a way of blocking or inhibiting the exploration, development, or the accumulation of further reality-based scientific knowledge.

Thanks for all the replies everyone! And, yeah, I don't expect NASA to drop everything they are doing and go to Europa... Also I heard a rumor that Russia is planning to search for life on Europa. If I hear any more info on this I will post it.

omg! thats awesome! i remember hearing about this on pbs once haha!

Europa is a good chance for life. Lots of possible liquid water, lots of tidal movement from jupiter to stir things up. My only worry is that there is obviously no light to help organisms grow. So maybe they will get their energy from the core fo the moon. Either way should be interesting.

I think you're right! It is exciting to consider.





You know......I'm seriously considering that human-kind is not as intelligent as we believe ourselves
to be.
Just because we can 'make things' and manipulate our physical environment....
I'm pondering...is this actually an inferior kind of intelligence.... because we are able
to 'play God' and to a degree, separate ourselves from 'nature'....MAYBE this is a BAD
thing....because we don't appear to have the spiritual or emotional intelligence to balance
out our 'technological' abilities.
Perhaps we have over-developed this 'tool-making' ability...that is now taking up too much
of our brain-power....to the detriment of other kinds of development?
Our physical adaptions to Earth's environment don't seem to be getting us very far....over
population....ever-present war, of one kind or another....permanent brink of nuclear pollution
and/or destruction. Yes...we've got houses and cars and phones and computers and electricity
and and...all the rest of it. But has our kind of 'tool-making' intelligence lead us down a dead-end path?






Fish would be good....

I don't believe that no light is a problem. If you look at earth's oceans, deep under the water where there is absolutely no light, at the bottom of the ocean there is life. Fish that glow with their own natural light, jelly fish, even sharks... The supposed "key ingredients" for life are not so "key" if you ask me.

That's pretty much what I meant - if we find life (Any kind of life) in our solar system beyond earth, then it establishes the fact that life is more than likely quite common... Even if we found a single microbe on Europa, that would prove that life in other solar systems is quite possible and that intelligent life is a definite possibility. Right now we have to consider the idea that intelligent life is out there based simply on the size of the univers and the number of planets... If we found something in this solar system, that would make intelligence an almost certainty...

I guess we dont know what is universally required for life to begin and thrive initially. I suppose if there is an energy source life will find a way of using it. And Bee i believe in the exact opposite. We are socially evolving as we move further and further away from blind faith. The more advanced we get the more science will begin to merge with religion has we begin to understand how we exist.



No because we are the only species on the planet who has the ability to defend the rest of the planet life forms from natural disasters and threats. We merely play a different role in the universe.

Well, we have the [i]potential[/] to defend the planet. But is that truly what we, as a race, are doing?

Anyways, back on topic.

I honestly don't know if life can be found there. I mean, we only know life as it exists on earth, and we still don't know exactly how 'life' works. Life could easily exist on many different planets but on a different 'platform' (IE different elemental make-up than earth based life), or (from a scientific stand point) we could've lucked out & won the universe lottery and had the perfect mix of everything on earth to promote the growth of life.

Who knows.

If other discoveries are anything to go by, it'll probably be microbial life forms.

Science is making all sorts of mind-boggling advancements....but I still wonder if it's going
to turn round and 'bite us on the bum' in the not too distant future...because the power and
dominance that it gives us....can't stop the flaws ingrained in human nuture....that can so easily
turn to 'evil' and 'selfish' activities.



I beg to differ...

I don't think we can do much about natural disasters.....and we, ourselves probably pose the biggest threat
to this planet and it's myriad of life forms....I see nuclear accident or nuclear war as the biggest threat we
pose.....but also the way 'we' just dominate and colonise the planet....with very little regard to other creatures
and nature, in general.
That all sounds a bit pessimistic and gloomy....I don't think we're all bad. But we might be bad enough that
our reliance and obsession with physical scientific advancement...could turn out to be the poison chalice.
For example....if we didn't have electricity or cars for an extended period of time...I think societies could
quickly decend into violent anarchy. Because we've become too dependant on all the perks.




Maybe if there is aquatic life anywhere....they might have a quality of intelligence that we are
incapable of understanding......

bee your really are to negative

Every other lifeform on our planet kills, destroys and has very little order. This is what life is and how it interacts with itself. Humanity is the one species that has the ability to one day to stop all "negative" killing towards ourselves and other life forms. Our pursuit of better technology will provide our societies with the ability to rid hunger, disease and all the things people fight for in wars such as standard of living, money etc.

No we cant do much for natural disasters yet. However as each year passes we get 1 step closer to being able to control our environment better.



That is completely untrue. Maybe in the past we didn't care about the environment, but attitudes are changing and alot of people are doing their part to help. The environment had a massive outcome on the elections here last year, as Howard would not support kyoto or green power but Rudd did.



Hardly, so if we didnt have cars or electricity, for say a few years we would all start fighting? You do realise modern society survived without such "perks" for thousands of years just fine. Don't under estimate our ability to rise to the occasion when things get tough. Theres a reason humans have evolved to the dominant species on this planet.

This is a bigger subject than we have time to go into here.
The main point I was trying to make was that our kind of intelligence might not be as noble and
superior as we'd like to think.



Ummm....yes. But now we are very dependent on the very things that give us our freedoms....and the
basic survival skills that our ancestors had....are lost to us, in the modern world. If we had to suddenly
find our own clean water, food, make our own shelters etc etc....I do think there would be chaos.




Well...lets hope it's never put to the test, eh?

So's not to go completely off topic....I think we must agree to disagree, on these points, for now...

But thanks for your points of view.....and for having faith in our species.....

i will guarantee you that life on europa would be microbes. not fish, nor krill. nothing that complex could survive

Do you have a source or reason as to why you believe this or is it just your opinion?

I could easily believe there is with small proof, but you've given no source , Still, you know what they say! "Where there's water there's life" =) , It's a high chance, I wonder what they have to say about pluto lol

There are plenty of places to get info about it.... google "Life on Europa"

Also

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LY7AdHWQvBo

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IkKcLmCi7hk

and I'm watching this one right now...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=meTsy1ktQIY

Ok just finished that last one... the first half of it is about Mars then it talks about Europa for a very short amount of time...

the idea that europa has no complex life is a near-guaranteed fact. it simply has no conditions to sustain complex life. its too cold, and conditions to evolve complex life wouldve taken billions of years on a planet not a moon, and under very very specific conditions.

we could be a rare event in the galaxy, and as of now, complex life is very rare

You are speaking as if all complex life in the universe is exactly like complex life on earth, which is fine if that is your opinion. In my opinion Life on other planets are completely different then life on earth. Some life may be similar but created in a different way using different chemicals as building blocks. I find that it is possible for alien life (not human or earthly life) to survive in harsh weather conditions such as many degrees below zero. Remember this is only an opinion of mine, an idea..... I have no evidence to back it up and I do not believe that there is any evidence to prove these ideas wrong. If so I would like to hear them.

Also the surface of Europa is very cold, but it is believed that the inner planet is somewhat heated by the gravitational pull of Jupiter. This is one of the reasons that most scientists believe that there is an ocean of salt water below the frozen ice.

I agree that as of now complex life is very rare, but keep in mind that we have barely even scratched the surface of space. That is like me opening my front door, stepping outside and not seeing any birds.... then I could come to the conclusion that birds are very rare... but, as we all know, that is not the case.

what do you base your opinion on? there isn't ANY evidence for life anywhere besides Earth at this time... just wondering

There isn't any evidence that proves there is life anywhere besides Earth, but there is a large amount of evidence that it is very possible and very likely that there is, or in some cases was, life on other planets in our solar system besides earth.

For one: Mars. There is a lot of evidence that suggests Mars was once inhabited by life. The evidence suggests that mars once had running liquid water and an atmosphere much like earth.

And also: Europa. As I said before, the surface of Europa is covered in ice. Underneath the ice is thought to be an ocean of salt water. The water is believed to be heated because: as Europa revolves around Jupiter, it doesn't stay the same distance from Jupiter the entire time. It gets closer and then further away. The gravitational pull from Jupiter slightly stretches Europa as it gets closer and retracts to it's original size as it gets further away. This is a constant cycle. This is what scientists believe heats Europa's ocean. Also the cracks on the icy surface of Europa suggest that the heated ocean is causing the ice to crack. I, along with many other people including a lot of scientists believe that there is life in the ocean of Europa.

As for me saying that I believe life is different on other planets is because for one, we do not know or understand what life is. Also, life has been found in the most unlikely of places around the world. Many planets i'm sure have different chemical make-ups and most likely ynew elements that we have never encountered. Life, in my opinion. will find some way to thrive by use of these elements, no matter how unlikely it may be. I base this opinion on, as i said earlier, life is found in the most unlikely of places all over the world, and also the thought that any planet that has life uses the exact same chemical make-up as Earth seems silly to me. I'm sure that life doesn't always consist of two arms two legs a torso and a head.

I once read an article in a magazine about what sort of life could have in theory, evolve in the Europa ocean (Assuming it exists) and they had some terrifying creatures in there dude! There was a crocodile like creature that ate by inverting itself and wrapping its sticky inner flesh around its victims. Horrific to say the least.

but to suggest evolution on earth for billions of yrs is easy to happen again, your wrong. their are many chance factors. most scientists would say that complex life is unlikely to occur even 100's of times in the UNIVERSE!

as of now, our kind of planet would be the best for any kind of life, and earth-like planets are incredibly rare. maybe theirs 1 for every 1000 habitable galaxies

can complex life adapt to harsh enviornments? yes, but very few. could life begin and evolve in harsh enviornments? not a chance

Huh? We already found 2 super earths (not entirely like earth) in a galaxy not too far from ours.

out of the 1st 200 planets!! 1 in 100 planets are terrestrial then. how many are habitable, how many have this, and this, and this and so on. the possibility shrinks and shrinks and shrinks......

and shrinks

It is exceedingly tricky to discovery exoplanets the size of Earth, hence all discoevered so far have been significantly larger. And to actually say wether said planets are habitable is still beyond our capabilities. But as we discover more and more exoplanets I would actually say that the possibilities expand

Cheers,
badeskov

No. There is simply not enough info on the subject to rule anything out at this point.



What scientists said that?



I have said before that we have barely even scratched the surface of space(the universe). So I guess what you said here is correct, for the tiny little speck that we have explored.... And you are right, our kind of planet is the best kind of planet for life... on Earth....



No one said that life began in harsh environments. And the environments are harsh to life that evolved on earth that need specific elements to keep themselves alive. I am suggesting that Alien life would depend on other factors to stay alive and Earth may possibly be a harsh environment to them. Other life may depend on much colder weather, or hotter weather... or even different pressure levels, gravity..... they may not even breathe oxygen or drink our kind of water, have a physical body or reproduce in the same manner.... It is completely unknown what to expect.