Life May Exist on the Second Galilean Moon of Jupiter, Europa

Life May Exist on the Second Galilean Moon of Jupiter, Europa

I choose this title “Life May Exist on the Second Galilean Moon of Jupiter, Europa” in this semester because it is a very significant issue that people pay particular attention to and it is still a very big unknown question so far. However, many space scientists may believe that the second Galilean moon of Jupiter, Europa is a moon that could support life because it not only contains vast amounts of liquid water and heat and oxygen but also contains a wide variety of organic molecules and liquid oceans.

Recent activity has erased any scars of ancient meteoritic impacts on the moon Europa. The dark areas are rocky deposits that may have come from the moon Europa’s interior, or may have been swept up by Europa as it moved in its orbit. Europa’s surface also displays a vast network of lines crisscrossing bright, clear fields of water ice. Some of these linear “bands”, or fractures,extend halfway around the satellite and resemble in some ways the pressure ridges that develop in ice floes on Earth’s polar oceans.

Europa’s icy surface is only lightly cratered, indicating that some ongoing process must be obliterating impact craters soon after they form. The cracks crisscrossing the surface are the most likely to be caused by the tidal effects of Jupiter.

The moon Europa is about the size of Earth’s moon, but Europa’s ocean holds twice as much liquid water as all the oceans of Earth combined, and the moon Europa is otherwise markedly different from the size of Earth’s moon. To begin with, at 490 million miles (790 million kilometers) far away from the Sun, the temperature on Europa’s surface is bone-chilling -230 degrees Fahrenheit (-145 degrees Celsius). That’s much too cold to support life as we know it.

But many space scientists still believe that life probably has ever existed on Europa before like dinosaurs have ever existed on Earth before even if life doesn’t exist on Europa right now. Some space scientists may think that life probably has suffered the intense impact of some small space debris and some large space meteors on Europa like dinosaurs suffered the strong impact of some large space meteors and disappeared on Earth 65 million years ago if life has already
disappeared on Europa now.

The likelihood that Europa has an extensive layer of liquid water below its surface ice opens up many interesting avenues of speculation about the possible development of life there. In the rest of the solar system, only Earth has liquid water on or near its surface, and most space scientists agree that liquid water plays a key role in the potential appearance of life on the moon Europa. Europa may well contain more liquid water than the liquid water exists on our entire planet Earth. Nevertheless, the possibility, even a remote planet or moon or star, of life on Europa was an important motivating factor in the decision to extend the “Galileo” space mission for two (now three) more years. Astronomers now eagerly await the launch of NASA’s proposed “Europa Orbiter” space mission in 2003.

If Europa has a biosphere that will be found not just in the ocean but also extends all the way up to the surface, then, life will be accessible to us if we want to find it. But it also means that life will also be very vulnerable, a place where Earth’s bacteria carried by a spacecraft could enter Europa’s biosphere like germs in an open wound. Space scientists need to take this possibility seriously anyway.

Some space scientists are still uncertain if Europa really contains liquid water and heat energy and oxygen and organic molecules to support life. This is still a big unknown question that many space scientists are full of curiosity. Recently, many astronauts from different countries have taken spaceships and space shuttles and orbiters and landers to explore if some natural factors and conditions to support life really exist on Europa in order to further uncover this big unknown question. However, on the other hand, other space scientists believe that there are probably liquid water and heat energy and oxygen and organic matter to support life on Europa.

Most space scientists think that Europa appears to contain some likely natural key factors and conditions to support life, such as liquid water, energy sources, oxygen, organic compounds,and billions of years of development.

The big unknown question is what’s needed for life to originate on Earth and other planets. Taken together, these natural factors and conditions are relatively sufficient for Europa to support life. If we want to answer the question of whether life actually exists on Europa or not, however, it still requires both further exploration work and further investigation work with spacecraft and space shuttles and orbiters and landers onto Europa like those space vehicles which explore Mars.