1st Choice for Extraterrestrial Life: Saturn's Titan or Jupiter's Europa?

Extraterrestrial life is the most interesting thing ever, bar nothing, and if you disagree you're either a terribly limited person or misread the start of the sentence.  We're incredibly lucky to even exist, and on top of that we have two possible life-locations right here on our solar system doorstep - but we have to choose which to check.  We want to go everywhere, but with a price-tag of billions of dollars per outer-planet probe we have to decide and flipping a coin just won't cut it.

Option Number One is Europa, the favored satellite son of many exobiologists and even Arthur C. Clarke himself.  While distinctly non-Terran, huge sub-surface lakes probably heated by tidal stresses, and even an extremely tenuous oxygen atmosphere make it a leading contender.  Hot water and even some air?  Is there a more likely life-site without tiny bacteria-sized jacuzzis?

Number Two is Titan, a very-Terran option whose surface lakes, shorelines, seasons and relatively thick nitrogen atmosphere mean it's viewed as an early-model Earth.  And 100% of all know Earths have awesome life on them!  The significantly lower temperature is a bit of a stumbling block (it's ten times as far from the sun as us), but the possibility of subterranean microbial life - or even a prebiotic "Life could happen!" environment - would be a massive result.

Remember, most of space is empty.  Either "not enough there to even count as dead" or "hard radiation sterilized space that would make a bucket of bleach in a blender look like a life-form holiday home". There's life out there somewhere, and anybody who says otherwise simply doesn't understand how big the universe is, but having three such suitable environments in one (stellar scale) space?  The solar system is three winning lottery tickets delivered by a trained unicorn and we'd be fools not to collect.

Right now having to choose is hard.  But being able to choose is incredible.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

NASA, ESA to decide on 'life' mission http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/02/10/2487461.htm

Comments

[ramkumar]

Better bet on Europa with water oceans under its icey crust and enceladus which has galceirs and Ionized water molecules(Ionozed molecules tells us about the element in motion).Titan is primordial earth with methane lakes and rains and ESA had sent cassini there. Defenitely there is a possibility of aquatic beings in Europa like what we have beneith Artic and antartic Ice caps..
Add to it the beleif of Arthur C Clerk the lord of Sfi. News Horizons on its way to Pluto ,sharon and Kupier belt objects (all of them will be Icey) will reveal more .

we had started betting on satellites of gasious planets.It is time to change Franc Drakes equations add Fsh( were 's'symbolises satellites with water ).

[Tom]

Indigenous lifeforms be damned. I'd say lets drop in machines to start terraforming them both.

[Barry]

I see no mention of Enceladus here. Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to make two probes that performed the same function. Europa and Enceladus have the same challenges when it comes to exploring. Titan has challenges on a totally different scale and since it's in deep freeze, it isn't going anywhere.
Also give the probes a more descriptive and easy to understand name, something catchy like Life Finder or Alien World Explorer, maybe ask the public to name them again.(Like they did with the Mars rovers.)
An important name that would make it harder for short sighted politicans to cut funding. Either way we are talking about looking for life on another planet, which disserves alot more fan fair.

[dirk alan]

i vote for titan ive got 2 hummers to feed.

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

This is a TOUGH CALL, but I have to say again that we should investigate BOTH, with semi - autonomous robot probes, or better yet a series of them, then maybe in the future ( factoring in the budget cuts to NASA some way ), actual manned space missions. Include Enceladus in our " wish list / triptych " too.
Mars seems more Earthlike in some ways, but that's no guarantee that there's life existing there now. My money is firmly on Europa, Titan & Enceladus, & maybe Mars as a runner - up.

[Merlins Tears]

Each poses its own set of challenges - true enough - and if you're going to make a probe, well, might as well make two - twins, if you like. Europa first - decide on the second later.

[aeroskyn]

Stay away from Europa!!

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

Titan, Europa, & Enceladus ALL THE WAY, like I said. 1st with robot probes, then hopefully human beings.

[dmarx]

It does seem our solar system was blessed with an abundance of resources.

I still hold to my belief that we should actually just build sattelite habitats and use the planets as gigantic resource points, cause terraforming doesn't happen over night.

But if man has to step onto another rock then I think....

we should go to Jupiter first. Live underwater on Europa.

Then, when Titan starts turning into a new earth we hop to that rock.

I think Enceladus should be saved for last. it hasn't even developed an atmosphere yet. but it looks like it could.

So let's go to Europa, and live out our SeaQuest dreams.

[dmarx]

Oh, but after the probes get there okay, we should seriously just send mice. hundreds of them!

[merlins tears]

We can always send cockroaches - those things can live anywhere!

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

We should send self - replicating robots to these worlds. Maybe they could prepare habitats on Europa & Titan ( at least ) for us in the future there.

[Daniel]

You may find the ingredients, but earth s a unique oven. Nothing will ever come of another planet. We were lucky that the right things happened at the right time in earths varying climactic shifts. No other planet in the universe will ever have the same luck

[Sherrie May]

Europa got my full attention a while back. While Titan is exciting, I believe Europa should be our first stop. Perhaps exrtemophiles are already living under its icy crust. (Finger crossed) We have already had a brief look at Titan, perhaps we should go to Europa then further down the track return to Titan to see how its coming along. But Europa could have life in its very early stages already there. So it gets my vote. Honestly I dont understand why probes are not there already?? This could be the first "LIFE" we find!!!