In 2025, human beings may discover extraterrestrial life for the first time.
This is not my nonsense, but is admitted by NASA itself.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Goldschmidt</h1> Congress
Honolulu is the capital of the U.S. state of Hawaii, where Sun Yat-sen founded the Xingzhong Association on November 24, 1894. And 126 years later, on June 21, 2020, a grand meeting of the scientific community was also held here.
Honolulu
This is the Goldschmidt Conference, which was attended by many scientific institutions, including NASA (NASA).
Goldschmidt Congress logo
During the June 25 meeting, NASA scientists revealed a shocking fact: According to a new model, there may be an ocean of liquid water beneath Europa's surface, which means that Europa's environment has the possibility of sustaining life.
Note that, according to NASA scientists, what makes up Europa's ocean is "water," not messy methane or anything.
Europa
Previous studies have found that Europa has white water vapor fountains several kilometers high, and these fountains operate very regularly. According to Hubble observations, chlorides and sulfides may be present in Europa's ocean. This means that europa's seafloor may have a heat source similar to the "hydrothermal vent" in the depths of earth's oceans.
geyser
On Earth, these hydrothermal vents feed a whole host of deep-sea life.
So after research, NASA planetary scientist Mohit Melwani Daswani decided that Europa is the best place to look for life in the solar system.
NASA has also proposed a plan to explore Europa, and the new "Europa Clipper" will soon start ("Europa" is another name for Europa), and is expected to set off in 2024 to explore the world beneath Europa's ice, looking for signs of life and Europa's rocky volcanic movements.
Since it takes the shortest 13 months to reach Jupiter, the probe will arrive at Europa as soon as 2025. That's why I said at the beginning of the article that "in 2025, human beings will discover extraterrestrial life for the first time."
Juno probe
But why is Europa the "best place to find life"? What are its special conditions?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > excellent hydrothermal conditions</h1>
Found by Galileo in 1610 , Europa is the sixth known moon of Jupiter.
Unlike other Moons of Jupiter, Europa is likely to have hydrothermal conditions suitable for carbon-based life.
As early as 1979 and 1995, the American Voyager 1 and Galileo had already detected Europa respectively.
Traveler No.1
Voyager 1 found strips of ravines and numerous craters on Europa, and its successor, Galileo, closer to Europa, found that the cracks in the ice on Europa's surface were very similar to the movement of the ice sheets at the north and south poles of the Earth.
Moreover, Galileo also found many "cross stripes" on europa's surface, resembling a phenomenon caused by the diffusion of material after the earth's volcanic activity. Therefore, scientists believe that the terrain of Europa should be created by a series of volcanic eruptions or underground fountains.
Europa's surface is striped
Two points can be inferred from this:
The first is that the Europa ice sheet should contain earth-like oceans underneath, because only the ice sheets that are generated on the ocean can produce large crack stripes.
The second is that Europa has a stable heat source that can provide energy for Europa's geological activities, such as volcanic eruptions and underground fountains.
The heat source of the general planet comes from its core, such as the heat source of the sun is the fusion reaction of the core, while the heat source of the earth is the fission reaction of the heavy elements inside.
core
But Europa's heat source is slightly different from the above, and its energy comes mainly from the tidal friction given by Jupiter.
When Europa moves to a near-wood point, it is elongated by Jupiter's gravitational pull, and when it moves to a distant wood point, it will regain shape due to the decrease of Jupiter's gravitational pull. The friction caused by this pull and contraction heats Europa's core, providing energy for its planetary activity.
Don't underestimate these frictions, which sometimes cause liquid water to rush up the ice, forming fountains of hundreds or even thousands of meters. It is conceivable that Europa must not lack similar heated water inside, and there will even be hydrothermal vents rich in sulfides.
Hydrothermal vents
On Earth, volcanoes create a very rich abundance of sulfur-containing compounds that form structures similar to "black chimneys" when they erupt on a black background. Many deep-sea creatures depend on the sulfides brought by black chimneys, such as the famous tubular worm.
Tubular worms
According to the above speculation, Europa's seabed should have similar hydrothermal vents, which may also spew sulfur-containing compounds.
Europa will also produce a certain amount of oxygen due to water electrolysis, which contains a certain proportion of oxygen in its very thin atmosphere, and it may also dissolve a certain amount of oxygen in its ocean.
At the same time, the data collected by the Galileo spacecraft also indicates that Europa is likely to contain an iron core similar to that of Earth. Because Europa can excite an induced magnetic field of its own under the influence of Jupiter's magnetic field, it means that there is likely to be a seawater-like conductive layer and a metal core inside it.
All this is to illustrate one thing: Europa's ice is likely to encompass a world with abundant hydrothermal conditions suitable for the birth and maintenance of life.
In addition to this, the organisms that make up life may have arrived at Europa very early.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > seeds of life from interstellar space</h1>
Generally speaking, we believe that life on Earth originated from the collision of organic matter in the ancient ocean, and these organic matter came from outer space.
Organic matter formed in interstellar space came to Earth with the exchange of meteorites between stars, and over time accidentally reacted to DNA that could replicate itself, eventually constituting life on Earth today.
This speculation has also been partially confirmed by the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, which found organic matter , glycine , on the target comet. Glycine is one of the 20 amino acids that make up life on Earth.
In 2013, with the help of new signal processing technology, NASA reprocessed the striped images of Europa's surface taken by the Galileo probe, proving that there were traces of clay minerals on Europa's surface. On this surface Europa, Europa was once violently impacted by an asteroid and left behind mineral debris.
And on Europa's thick ice there is also a material exchange channel with the subsurface ocean - geysers, which are the columns of water that are heated by friction just mentioned in the article. While working in the geyser, the ice on Europa's surface was temporarily melted, and some of the organic matter that reached Europa's surface was able to enter the subsurface ocean to begin its evolutionary journey.
With the above two conditions, it seems that finding life on Europa is a matter of ten to nine. But because of this, humans may not dare to let the probe land on Europa at present.
What if earth creatures ran to Europa?
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > powerful Life on Earth</h1>
Although the satellites will be thoroughly disinfected before they leave, and the radiation from long-term space travel will also eliminate the microorganisms attached to the spacecraft for the second time, even a little fish that has slipped through the net may contaminate the planet with the support of Europa's superior conditions.
There are too many guys on earth who can survive these harsh conditions, and if nothing else, just the famous "water bear".
It is capable of surviving for 2 minutes at -272 degrees Celsius close to absolute zero, days in an environment of -200 degrees Celsius, and possibly 2 minutes in high temperatures of 181 degrees Celsius.
Secondly, it can jump alive under 5700 gray rays, generally 10-20 gray rays can kill humans. And it can also resist the radiation of 57,000 roentgen, which is generally 500 roentgen can kill humans. This means that the atomic bombs may all be helpless against the tardigrades.
The tardigrade can also survive in a vacuum and can withstand a pressure of 600 megapascals, about 6 times the water pressure of the Mariana Trench (the deepest is about 10,994 meters), about 6,000 times the normal atmospheric pressure.
Water bears can also get better by dormant for hundreds of years waiting for harsh environments.
It can be seen that if the probe contaminates the tardigrade and does not completely kill it, it can completely create its own world on Europa.
Not to mention that there is a large number of cattle on the earth like the water bear, and no one can guarantee 100% sterilization with the current human sterilization technology.
Therefore, there has been a great deal of controversy in the scientific community about how to carry out detailed detection of Europa, and many people believe that from the perspective of risk reduction, it is best to leave Europa a pure land at present.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
The solar system has long confirmed the absence of other higher intelligent life, but it is still possible to find low-level life.
All that humans have done for so many years is to prove whether they are lonely in the universe or not.
We have always believed that the universe is so big, there are always friends who walk with us.
Maybe in a few years we'll be able to see them.
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