Jupiter's Moon Europa May Have Enough Oxygen For Life

[n2doc]

New research suggests that there is plenty of oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms with greater oxygen demands than microorganisms.



The global ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa contains about twice the liquid water of all the Earth’s oceans combined. New research suggests that there may be plenty of oxygen available in that ocean to support life, a hundred times more oxygen than previously estimated.

The chances for life there have been uncertain, because Europa’s ocean lies beneath several miles of ice, which separates it from the production of oxygen at the surface by energetic charged particles (similar to cosmic rays). Without oxygen, life could conceivably exist at hot springs in the ocean floor using exotic metabolic chemistries, based on sulfur or the production of methane. However, it is not certain whether the ocean floor actually would provide the conditions for such life.

Therefore a key question has been whether enough oxygen reaches the ocean to support the oxygen-based metabolic process that is most familiar to us. An answer comes from considering the young age of Europa’s surface. Its geology and the paucity of impact craters suggests that the top of the ice is continually reformed such that the current surface is only about 50 million years old, roughly 1% of the age of the solar system.

Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona has considered three generic resurfacing processes: gradually laying fresh material on the surface; opening cracks which fill with fresh ice from below; and disrupting patches of surface in place and replacing them with fresh material. Using estimates for the production of oxidizers at the surface, he finds that the delivery rate into the ocean is so fast that the oxygen concentration could exceed that of the Earth’s oceans in only a few million years. Greenberg presented his findings at the 41st meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences now under way in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

http://www.physorg.com/news174918239.html#top

[Richard D]

1. "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE."

[Aragorn]

9. Dude..

ya beat me to it.

[Richard D]

14. I'm surprised . . .

. . . no one else got there first.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. It amazes me the amount of water on Europa vs Earth

Arthur C Clarke was right about Europa. Perhaps this will come true one day

We are just tenants on this world. We have just been given a new lease, and a warning from the landlord.
Arthur C. Clarke, 2010

[safeinOhio]

3. What are they waiting for,

crash a rocket into NOW.:sarcasm:

[tridim]

4. They actually do have long-term plans to drill through the ice..

and search the water with a robot. It's still probably 20-30 years away though.

It will be an incredible discovery if we find life on a gas giant's moon. It'll mean life may exist in almost every solar system in the universe.

[Ganja Ninja]

5. They might not even have to drill through it to find life.

If there's microbes swimming around in the water then there should be some frozen in the surface ice or at least their remains.

[tridim]

6. True, but I hope the mission wont end there.

It's difficult to get probes to the outer planets, might as well go all out if we're spending the money anyway.

[Phoonzang]

8. I've seen some proposals for a robot to drill through the ice

They all seem pretty risky (as in high risk of failure). I hope we can send more than one probe when we do decide to expore Europa.

[Triana]

10. It'll mean idiot HOO-Mans can go destroy yet another planet once they've burnt up this one. n/t

[tridim]

11. It's a moon, and it's made of ice

Relax, we can't live there.

[Triana]

12. GOOD. We'd just destroy it. n/t

[Posteritatis]

15. Yawn, more "probes = death star superweapons" bullshit. (nt)

[backwoodsbob]

16. thanks Debby downer

[Orsino]

7. Wicked cool. n/t

[Cherchez la Femme]

13. Let's destroy another planet!

Yay!

[Phoonzang]

19. Sorry....did you not realize this is the science forum?

[Ter]

17. The liquid ocean is several miles under the ice

With ice that thick, the ocean must be pitch black. Life down there would be blind.

[Nihil]

18. That distance from the Sun it wouldn't matter if it were only feet thick ...

... the light level would still be pitch black (as far as we are concerned).

On the other hand, seeing how adaptive life is in our deep ocean, the supply
of sunlight isn't necessarily a factor.
:shrug:

[phantom power]

20. I've always assumed a Europa ecosystem would use reducing chemistry