Scientists in search of what lies beneath

UNITED STATES

IS THERE life moon Europa? like to find out.

‘‘It does have the right ingredients,’’ said Robert Pappalardo, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lead author of a new study outlining what might be learnt from a spacecraft that landed on the mysterious moon. ‘‘It likely has water, and the right chemistry to support life, and the potential chemical fuel that could make life possible.’’

Europa is about the size of the Earth’s moon and covered in a sheet of ice about 25km deep. But beneath that icy shell, scientists believe Europa contains a liquid, salty, global ocean that could be conducive to life.

Galileo discovered Europa in 1610. Voyager I and II flew past the moon in 1979 and found intriguing hints that its cracked icy surface could conceal a vast ocean.

More evidence of Europa’s hidden ocean was found by the Galileo spacecraft in 1996, when its magnetometer noticed the moon was acting as a conductor – indicating it contains a salty ocean.

But to determine whether there is life in that ocean, scientists on Jupiter’s icy Scientists would would like to send a spacecraft that can land directly on Europa’s icy surface.

Sending a lander to Europa is not officially part of Nasa’s plans, but the agency asked Pappalardo and a far-flung team of planetary scientists to lay out what they would hope to learn if a spacecraft landed on the tantalising moon.

In a study in the journal Astrobiology, the team said it was mostly interested in Europa’s chemical composition – learning what makes up the rust-colored freckles and cracks that stain its surface, and if there are any organic materials that could serve as the building blocks of life.

‘‘From a fly-by mission we could get a better understanding of what this dark red stuff actually is, but from the surface, we could scoop up some of that stuff and do sophisticated analyses onboard the lander,’’ Pappalardo said.

The scientists would also like to learn more about Europa’s ocean, and study the surface geology.

Pappalardo said Nasa was probably years away from sending a lander to Europa.

‘‘In the outer-planet community you have to think decades ahead,’’ he said. ‘‘But it is very exciting.’’

Image: REUTERS Anybody out there?: An artist’s concept of a cross section of Jupiter’s moon Europa, which is thought to have a vast ocean beneath its 25km-deep icy crust. Scientists think that ocean is capable of supporting life.