Narrator:
In a solar system full of amazing planets and moons, Jupiter's moon,
Europa, stands out. Sandwiched between its icy skin and mantle,
there's an ocean, twice the volume of all of Earth's oceans.
Bob Pappalardo, Senior Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Everywhere on Earth, where there's water, there's life.
The search for life in our solar system is essentially the search for
liquid water.
The biggest deal about Europa, is that it may be the most promising
place off of the Earth for life in our solar system.
Narrator:
The Galileo spacecraft returned images of Europa that revealed a
strange variety of icy structures.
Some created by blobs of warmer ice that rise through colder ice.
Europa generates heat inside. How? It flexes as it's tugged by Jupiter's gravity.
Bob Pappalardo, Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Just like the Earth's oceans have tides because they're pulled by the
moon's
gravity , Europa should have a tide because it's pulled by Jupiter's
gravity.
And Europa as it orbits, gets a little closer and a little farther
from Jupiter.
So when it's closer to Jupiter, it'll be stretched out more.
When it's farther from Jupiter, it will contract more.
It's kind of like bending a paperclip.
If you bend a paperclip back and forth, that generates just a little
bit of heat.
You can touch it to your lip. You can feel that paperclip is heated up.
So in a similar way this flexing of Europa, as its orbits around
Jupiter, is generating heat
and keeping that ocean going.
Narrator:
It may even be hot enough to heat mantle and that encounters water, perhaps creating
black smokers, like we see on Earth's ocean floor.
An environment in which primitive organisms might be able to survive.
Bob Pappalardo, Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
I would certainly say that Europa has the most potential within our
solar system for life outside the Earth.
Other icy satellites are candidates. Mars is a candidate too and you
might get a different opinion from different scientists.
But based on what I understand about the icy satellites, Europa seems
very promising for microbial life today.
Narrator:
New research is bringing scientists closer to understanding Europa.
Inside this tiny lab at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, scientists
are creating a database, to try to answer big questions about Europa
and other icy moons.
Bob Pappalardo, Research Scientist, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Well, the purpose of this lab is to perform experiments that are
relevant to Europa and to other icy satellites, to understand things
like how much heating is there when the ice is squeezed and flexed.
Or if there is a flow of slushy icy stuff that comes out on to the
surface of Europa or Titan or Enceladus at Saturn.
What are the characteristics of ices when they're slushy like that
and might erupt onto the surface.
We don't know if life is really unique to our Earth, very rare in the
cosmo, or is it common in the cosmos.
If we went some place like Europa and found evidence for life today
in another ocean, it would say that maybe wherever there's an ocean
or a warm salty ocean there's life.
Narrator:
And that could mean that life may be abundant throughout the universe.