US EditionStudy Finds Europa’s Seafloor Lacks Energy to Support Life Today, Raising Questions for Saturn’s Icy Moons
The study shows Europa’s seafloor lacks tectonic and volcanic energy needed to sustain life, with most internal heating dissipated billions of years ago, researchers said.
- On Tuesday, a study in Nature Communications led by Paul Byrne concluded Europa's seafloor likely lacks tectonic motion, hydrothermal vents, or other activity needed to support life today.
- Analysing Europa's interior revealed too little gravitational energy from Jupiter’s tidal forces to drive seafloor geology, and Byrne and co-authors found internal heat dissipated billions of years ago.
- Study modelling indicates Europa's ice shell overlays an ocean , and Christian Klimczak said, `Based on our findings, the seafloor would probably not contain major tectonic landforms, such as long ridges or deep troughs`.
- In the coming years, scientists will learn more as NASA's Europa Clipper and European Space Agency's JUICE missions provide improved data, with Europa Clipper's close flybys scheduled for the spring of 2031, Byrne and research team said.
- Even if the seafloor is quiet today, Europa—holding maybe two to three times Earth's water—may have been more geologically active in the distant past, with Byrne saying `that world really was just not habitable but actually inhabited`.
24 Articles
24 Articles
A new study casts doubt on life beneath Europa’s ice
Europa’s buried ocean has made it one of the most exciting places to search for life beyond Earth. However, new calculations suggest its seafloor may be calm, cold, and largely inactive, with little energy to support living organisms. Unlike Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, Europa experiences weaker tidal forces that fail to drive underwater geology. The ocean may exist, but it could be a very quiet place.
Europa May Be Lifeless and Unihabitable After All
New research shows that Jupiter's moon Europa, one of the prime targets in the search for life, may not have the conditions required after all. The research shows that the moon lacks the type of active seafloor faulting needed to create habitability. Deep sea vents created by the faulting introduce nutrients into the water that organisms use to harness energy, and without those nutrients, the moon's subsurface ocean is likely dead.
Nasa's ambitious hunt for life on Jupiter ice moon ‘likely’ to be in vain
Nasa's hunt for life on Jupiter's ice moon Europa is "likely" to be in vain, as any sign of life is looking increasingly unlikely.Researchers at Washington University in St Louis have concluded that Europa's seafloor is probably far too quiet to support living organisms.The team's findings, published in Nature Communications, paint a rather bleak picture of what lies beneath the moon's frozen surface.Despite Europa boasting a massive ocean hidde…
Jupiter's moon Europa is on a short list of places in the Solar System considered promising for the search for potential alien life, both present and past, because it is believed to harbor a vast subsurface ocean beneath its icy crust. However, new research raises questions about whether Europa actually has the conditions for life.
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Ju-young = Jupiter's moon Europa, which has attracted attention due to the possibility of life in a liquid saltwater ocean beneath its thick ice, has seen geological activity...
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