When you think about the prospect of life in our solar system, what comes to mind? You might conjure up images of bacteria hibernating under the frozen Martian surface or spores floating through the sulfuric clouds of Venus.
While those are surely interesting contenders, one of the hottest places to look for backyard aliens is colder than anywhere on Earth: enter Europa.
One of Jupiter’s four Galilean moons, Europa has been capturing the attention of astrobiologists since the late 1970s, when the Voyager spacecraft flew by and snapped photos that revealed a curiously smooth surface. The lack of mountains or impact craters suggests an active regime of ice tectonics — think Earth geology, but ice and water instead of rock and magma. Further analysis of magnetic interactions between Jupiter and Europa in the 1990s revealed strong evidence in favor of a saltwater ocean beneath the moon’s icy surface. Even more recently, a team of astronomers confirmed the presence of water vapor geysers in 2019 that spew enough water to fill an Olympic size swimming pool in minutes.
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