There was a problem. NASA The giant planet Jupiter is one of the last places humans would ever look for life beyond Earth, but the planet's enigmatic moon Europa is a different story entirely. Receive news and offers from our other brands? This possibility would obviate the need for a second genesis to explain life on a moon of Saturn or Jupiter. Receive mail from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors? New research provides insights on what might be the best - and easiest - way to search. Get breaking space news and the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! There was a problem. For example, NASA is developing a mission called Europa Clipper, which will characterize the satellite's ocean and scout out potential touchdown sites for a future life-hunting lander mission, among other tasks. Life forms living at the bottom of Europa's ocean should have an even tougher structure than the deep creatures living on Earth. Exoplanets are part of the picture as well. These are averages, he stressed; the moons' Mars mass almost certainly comes from very infrequent arrivals of decent-sized rocks, not a steady flow of small stuff. Hint: We’ll know a lot more about aliens by 2035. Both of these wheeled robots will focus on finding signs of ancient, not currently existing, Red Planet organisms. Get breaking space news and the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer. Purdue University geophysicist Jay Melosh tackled this question and presented the results last week during a talk here at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Thank you for signing up to Space. This robotic rotorcraft could potentially spot signs of life in the big moon's air, if any are there to be found. NY 10036. Jupiter's moon Europa is a promising place to search for evidence of alien life. No such mission is on the books, but one could get off the ground in the 2030s if we're lucky. Receive news and offers from our other brands? Scientists believe conditions may be right for life, under Europa's icy crust. © This water would reveal the chemistry of the subsurface ocean and may contain microbes that live below. Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. (Image: © NASA, ESA, JPL, SSI, Cassini Imaging Team). NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which is due to launch in 2021, will be able to sniff the atmospheres of nearby alien worlds for potential biosignatures, as will three giant ground-based observatories scheduled to come online in the middle to late 2020s — the Giant Magellan Telescope, the Extremely Large Telescope and the Thirty Meter Telescope. Visit our corporate site. Artist's concept image by NASA / JPL. Europa has a thin oxygen atmosphere, but it is far too tenuous for humans to breathe. You will receive a verification email shortly. New research provides insights on what might be the best - and easiest - way to search. (Of course, chances are decent that Martians, if they exist, are related to us.). The best Cyber Monday deals on Orion telescopes and binoculars, The Celestron Ambassador 80AZ Brass Telescope is now just $899 this holiday, Physicists could do the 'impossible': Create and destroy magnetic fields from afar, The best Cyber Monday deals on Sky-Watcher telescopes and binoculars, Twilight Imperium, an epic battle through the universe, is 25% off for Black Friday. Microbes are tough, but that's a long time to endure the harsh conditions of deep space. However, there could also be creatures on Europa which never reach the deep sea, so these creatures have to withstand similar pressures to creatures on Earth. Indeed, there's a school of thought that the life teeming here on Earth is actually native to Mars, which likely boasted habitable conditions earlier than our own planet did. Life on Europa: Water from a subsurface ocean on Jupiter's moon, Europa, could reach the surface through seeps or erupt from hot water vents. Life on Europa: Water from a subsurface ocean on Jupiter's moon, Europa, could reach the surface through seeps or erupt from hot water vents. And the simulations indicated that these incoming Mars rocks would hit Enceladus at between 5 and 31 km/s (11,180 mph to 69,350 mph). Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. The numbers were about 100 times higher for Europa; that moon got 0.00004% to 0.00007% of Earth's particle share. So that is my answer. However, if there is multicellular life (maybe even from Earth due to panspermia) then I think it will similar to what we find in our own deep seas around hydrothermal vents especially in the early days of life. (His calculations peg the probability of an exoplanet meteorite impacting Earth over the past 4.5 billion years at just 0.01%. Space is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Locating Life. We may be on the verge of answering some of these profound questions. From the surface of Europa, Jupiter appears 24 times larger than the moon appears in our sky. NASA has an unusually bold plan to find life on Europa . Please refresh the page and try again. New York, Future US, Inc. 11 West 42nd Street, 15th Floor, There will be serious astrobiological action closer to home soon, too. Melosh used computer models to follow the fates of 100,000 simulated Mars particles launched off the Red Planet by an impact. © NASA plans to launch a life-hunting rover to Mars next summer, as do the European Space Agency and Russia, which are working together via a program called ExoMars. The scientists have revealed that they believe the interior ocean in Jupiter's moon Europa may be able to sustain life. Using that figure, Melosh calculated that Europa gets about 0.4 grams of Mars material per year, and Enceladus receives just 2-4 milligrams. Europa, like the other planets and moons in our solar system, is more than four billion years old. In short, Europa may have a variety of processes that work together to make the chemical energy available for powering life processes of simple organisms like bacteria. Europa, the icy "cue ball" moon of Jupiter, has a relatively smooth crust of ice over a watery interior ocean. And over the longer haul, researchers are looking into ways to get a robot through the ice shells of Europa and Enceladus and into their possibly life-supporting oceans. You will receive a verification email shortly. He cites possible locations as the moon, Europa, on Jupiter, or the moon, Enceladus, on Saturn. Europa’s magnetic field shields its surface from Jupiter’s deadly radiation.