“If we were to find life on Europa, then that would strongly support the submarine alkaline vent theory,” which suggests that life on Earth originated near underwater alkaline hydrothermal vents, says Michael Russell at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Astrobiologist Russell and his colleagues suggest that where an icy crust and a hidden ocean meet in a frozen world such as Europa, these two sources of the building blocks of life could join together and potentially support the evolution of life. At the underside of Europa’s icy crust, they suggest a shallow biosphere – a network of ecosystems – can form. “All the ingredients and free energy required for life are all focused in one place.
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