Unmasking Jupiter's Europa -Does Its Hidden Ocean Harbor Life?

Europa.  One of the most interesting non-Earth locations in the solar system.  Never mind ice and occasional puddles, this moon has entire oceans - and where there's water, we can't help but hope there's life.  Recent results show that there are heat sources to drive evolution of such as well, but there's still debate over what's actually going on in there.

The key point of contention is the satellites crunchy ice covering.  We know that the Jovian moon is coated in kilometers of frozen material, but that sort of handwaving figure can get you in trouble - exactly how many kilometers there are can make all the difference.  We believe that the European core is heated by the massive tidal forces applied by Jupiter - but how does that heat radiate into space?

Most scientists believe that the subEuropan seas are locked under tens of kilometers of ice.  Heat is then conducted from the warm core by bulk convective motion of ice - huge chunks of frozen material literally carrying the heat away with them as they move up through the icy layer, shuffling and refreezing as they dump heat into space.

Professor Richard Greenberg believes that the crust is thin, only a kilometer or so, and heat is carried out by simple conduction - much slower, but providing a constant flow of energy through a relatively fixed underwater region bordering the immense cliffs of ice. 

Greenberg does weaken his case by accusing a "Big Ice" cabal of scientists of suppressing his results, holding back his views to favor their own established model.  The thing is, when you start talking about a conspiracy against you it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong: you sound a bit crazy.  Especially when that "cabal" isn't a hidden core of ultra-billionaires, but probably about twenty guys with tenure who meet twice a year to talk about space moons.

On the upside, it seems the shadowy Europa lobby can't keep him silent and he's printing a book, "Unmasking Europa", putting forward his views and setting up the mother of all "I told you so"s if it turns out he's right.  Again, he slightly weakens his case by fantasising an entire Europan ecosystem based on a few flybys of the Galileo probe, and it's not as if popular opinion  will actually sway the scientists investigating the issue.

What is important is that such issues do now percolate to the public, one way or another.  Science is no longer the preserve of those either rich enough to afford it or trying to build missiles out of it.  Beside the cook books and crime novels you can find imaginings of the stars, controversies of the cosmos, and books about the entire universe. Which are slightly more interesting than "Five things you can do with leftovers" by Dolores Housewife.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Unmasking Europa

Comments

[Richard Greenberg]

Thanks for the coverage of my new book Unmasking Europa!

I do want to correct a couple of points. First, I have never argued that the ice on Europa is only about a kilometer thick. I do emphasize that we, and others, have developed several lines of evidence that the ice is thin enough to be permeable, with openings that allow connections between the ocean and the surface (with important implications for habitability).

Also, you say I believe a "big ice" "cabal" has tried to suppress my work. You put quotes around those words, but I don't think I said or wrote them. I doubt that I used the phrase "big ice" or "cabal", so I am not sure where you got those quotes. Also, my work has hardly been suppressed. All our scientific results discussed in Unmasking Europa were already published prominently in the scientific literature, and our work has had considerable impact on many scientists' thinking. A lot detail is also in my earlier academic book "Europa the Ocean Moon".

I hope you and your readers will enjoy "Unmasking Europa".

Richard Greenberg
Professor of Planetary Sciences
University of Arizona

[Matt]

Jupiter's Europa is cool...
http://tvharddrive.com/?search=europa

[John White]

Wow, I must admit I am impressed. Well done.

jess
www.privacy.de.tc

[Pete]

There was a great science fiction comic book about Europa released a few years back. It was titled "Ocean" and written by Warren Ellis. It seemed worthy of mentioning in light of this article.

[Stéfan]

Sounds cool.

[Luke]

Thanks for the feedback Richard!

The quotes etc were taken from the astrobio.net article linked at the end of the piece - hence the inverted commas, as I didn't get them directly for yourself. I appreciate the corrections, and wish you the best of success with the book.

[stink]

Oh, man. Please tell me that it's not really "European".

[claudio]

Thanks professor for the clarifications.

Unfortunately as said the Galileo Probe suffered quite few issues including also the loss of the large parabolic dish that had allowed downloading a large quantity of data....in the few orbits done.

Cracks however show that moving oceans crash the surface crust sometime and somewhere with magnificent effects.

A better probe had been discovered the depth and composition of the icey crust.

Life Under the crust in the oceans beneath ??
Why NOT ??

Life install itself in very harsh environments....and even in the depth of our oceans we find primordial life creatures....with NO light at all.

Our kind likely comes from oceans and seas.

Therefore the next mission to Europa (we hope soon)has to clarify a number of unresolved issues of this magnificent moon of Juppiter...and then after may be a Probe could try to go below...in the depth of the oceans....
Would the cable between the marine probe and the surface station be a sufficient method for driving the Robot and gathering information ?????
It is indeed a difficult and challenging mission...to be done however.

I tend to disagree with those that says and maintain the terrific interest of Cassini and Huygens...with full respect for Cassini...Titan is a cold and remote...location plenty of methane, ethane and similar stuff...at some -150 kelvin ....why not Venus aside from the tremendous atmosphere pressure ??

Europa and may be Enceladus are more intersting moons to visit.

Regards

[Patrick]

"The key point of contention is the satellites crunchy ice covering." should be:
"The key point of contention is the satellite's crunchy ice covering."

[Des Emery]

The conditions under which life originates are not the same as those under which life evolves. The lifeforms surrounding deep-sea vents, surviving without light, undoubedly originated in shallow and warm water, then moved into inhospitable zones, adapting and evolving to fit those zones. The same forces allowed bacteria to originate under the influence of the sun, then move gradually into deep fissures in the crust where we now find them subsisting far below the Earth's surface. Unless Europa had different conditions in the far past, the water there is probably barren.

[EvilCosmicMonkey from Knoxville]

The evidence, to an admitted layman like myself, still looks very, VERY good for life under Europa.
Maybe a future probe will detect Chloropyll ? A perfect case of life imitating art if that happened. Life on / under Europa would probably be extremeophile, I'm guessing.

I'm going to forego my usual shtick about preferring Europa & / or Titan over Mars as extra - terrestrial eco - spheres. Wait, no I'm not.....

[Franz]

"Professor Richard Greenberg believes that the crust is thin, only a kilometer or so"

I understand the frustration of Richard Greenberg about this group of "most scientists".

By looking at the data I use to believe that both theory deep-freeze vs shallow-freeze were both equally plausible.

Ironically it seem now that the latest data tilted the issue toward Greenberg theory who has gained more ground as of October 2009.

Of course the jury is still out on this one. Thing can changes and I can not wait to get more data. We will know eventually.

I wonder why Luke McKinney is so partisan on this issue though.
What about respecting the other scientists with their different points of view? Particularly when the facts are not established yet.

I believe that one need to formulate hypothesis before starting any experiment or observation and of course there is some guessing in there. There is nothing wrong with that and discussing this should be a lot of fun.

Personally I am the most thrilled when I found out that my guess was wrong and I am always proud of myself once I found a fact regardless.

When I guess right: BORING! And I wonder subconsciously why I spent all this time to establish something I guessed.

[Franz]

"Life Under the crust in the oceans beneath ??
Why NOT ??"

I agree since we don't know how life really begin.

It is actually very possible that life never started on earth but came from space as spore of microorganisms inside a meteorite.

Who knows?