Jupiter's Moon Europa Has Enough Oxygen For Life

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New research suggests that there is plenty of oxygen available in the subsurface ocean of Europa to support oxygen-based metabolic processes for life similar to that on Earth. In fact, there may be enough oxygen to support complex, animal-like organisms with greater oxygen demands than microorganisms.

The global ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa contains about twice the liquid water of all the Earth’s oceans combined. New research suggests that there may be plenty of oxygen available in that ocean to support life, a hundred times more oxygen than previously estimated.

The chances for life there have been uncertain, because Europa’s ocean lies beneath several miles of ice, which separates it from the production of oxygen at the surface by energetic charged particles (similar to cosmic rays). Without oxygen, life could conceivably exist at hot springs in the ocean floor using exotic metabolic chemistries, based on sulfur or the production of methane. However, it is not certain whether the ocean floor actually would provide the conditions for such life.

Therefore a key question has been whether enough oxygen reaches the ocean to support the oxygen-based metabolic process that is most familiar to us. An answer comes from considering the young age of Europa’s surface. Its geology and the paucity of impact craters suggests that the top of the ice is continually reformed such that the current surface is only about 50 million years old, roughly 1% of the age of the solar system.

Richard Greenberg of the University of Arizona has considered three generic resurfacing processes: gradually laying fresh material on the surface; opening cracks which fill with fresh ice from below; and disrupting patches of surface in place and replacing them with fresh material. Using estimates for the production of oxidizers at the surface, he finds that the delivery rate into the ocean is so fast that the oxygen concentration could exceed that of the Earth’s oceans in only a few million years. Greenberg presented his findings at the 41st meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences now under way in Fajardo, Puerto Rico.

Greenberg says that the concentrations of oxygen would be great enough to support not only microorganisms, but also “macrofauna”, that is, more complex animal-like organisms which have greater oxygen demands. The continual supply of oxygen could support roughly 3 billion kilograms of macrofauna, assuming similar oxygen demands to terrestrial fish.

The good news for the question of the origin of life is that there would be a delay of a couple of billion years before the first surface oxygen reached the ocean. Without that delay, the first pre-biotic chemistry and the first primitive organic structures would be disrupted by oxidation. Oxidation is a hazard unless organisms have evolved protection from its damaging effects. A similar delay in the production of oxygen on Earth was probably essential for allowing life to get started here.

Richard Greenberg is the author of the recent book “Unmasking Europa: The Search for Life on Jupiter’s Ocean Moon”, which offers a comprehensive picture of Europa for the general reader.
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In other words...we've found a place, outside of our own planet, with all of the conditions we believe are necessary for life similar to what's found on this planet to exist.

...Suddenly Mars just got REALLY boring.
 
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA.

ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

USE THEM TOGETHER.

USE THEM IN PEACE.
 
I called it years ago. I wrote a sci-fi story for English which featured a rebellion based on Europa.
 
So then in 100s of years when hyperspeed is available in space ships our race will live on a moon to Saturn? Sweet! Wait a minute.....wasn't saturn the planet in the ending of the knowing!? HOLY SH---
 
I live in Europe, and soon I'll live in Europa... I just hope I can get my solar system passport by then.
 
Well, one thing's for sure. By the time organized life develops on Europa, we'll be dead, and the planet will be so dead, they won't be able to utilize it for their evil purposes. And Europa won't be capable of handling our biology without terraforming it to be...not freezing cold. So it's not like we can escape there to save us.

....What? We're the product of four billion years of evolving life (more or less, not counting the two billion before life roughly started). Europa ain't getting to this point in the next thousand years.
 
$aturn¥oshi said:
But I wanted to live on Titan...
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That would be a much better choice. On Titan the atmosphere is so thick and the gravity so weak that you could literally make some wings, strap them to your arms and fly around by flapping them. Unfortunately said atmosphere is a cyanide compound.

fate said:
ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA.

ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.

USE THEM TOGETHER.

USE THEM IN PEACE.
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Quoted for awesome reference.
 
Luna Tigre said:
Well, one thing's for sure. By the time organized life develops on Europa, we'll be dead, and the planet will be so dead, they won't be able to utilize it for their evil purposes. And Europa won't be capable of handling our biology without terraforming it to be...not freezing cold. So it's not like we can escape there to save us.

....What? We're the product of four billion years of evolving life (more or less, not counting the two billion before life roughly started). Europa ain't getting to this point in the next thousand years.
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Come now, you assume there's none there now. Where do you think all of the UFOs come from? And the little grey men...grey like dolphins. Coincidence? I think not.
 
GrnMarvl13 said:
Come now, you assume there's none there now. Where do you think all of the UFOs come from? And the little grey men...grey like dolphins. Coincidence? I think not.
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Well everyone knows that Centaurs are from Alpha Centauri.
 
*Points at his profile*

But I already live there! Does that make me an aline?
 
GrnMarvl13 said:
Come now, you assume there's none there now. Where do you think all of the UFOs come from? And the little grey men...grey like dolphins. Coincidence? I think not.
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I'd like to know where they got their resources to built ships then. Moonrock?

...Though seriously, I don't doubt the possibility of there being living microbes there already.
 
Luna Tiger said:
I'd like to know where they got their resources to built ships then. Moonrock?
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It's hardened ice. They have such technology there.

...Though seriously, I don't doubt the possibility of there being living microbes there already.
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Any life found on another planet or planetoid would make me happy, on matter how small.

Though I WOULD like to see some alien whale-like creatures.
 
Nooo, the ice would survive a trip through space (there's a reason why there's frozen ice on Mars AND Earth), but only until it hit our atmosphere.

More water for us, yo.
 
Do you know what they do to the urine that is stored up on the ISS and the space shuttle? They release it into space. If ice didn't evaporate in space, there would be quite a bit of piss orbiting the earth.
 
TheMissingno. said:
Do you know what they do to the urine that is stored up on the ISS and the space shuttle? They release it into space. If ice didn't evaporate in space, there would be quite a bit of piss orbiting the earth.
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Lol the way you put it. I might sig that.
 
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