JUPITER's icy moon Europa could support life, scientists claim, following the discovery of 'chaos terrain' (above) on the moon’s surface. A new study published by Nature claims this is likely to have been caused by warm water which could be as little as 3km below the surface.
Liquid water is the key condition required for life, and the study's author, Britney Schmidt from the University of Texas, claims that in our solar system "Europa has the best chance of having life".
Any life would also require a food source capable of travelling between the subsurface lakes and Europa’s vast ocean below the crust. With this new evidence, scientists believe that there may be what the Christian Science Monitor calls a 'dumb-waiter system', with plumes of heat rising from the ocean to the nutrient-rich crust and carrying the nutrients back down again.
Nasa astrobiologist Dr. Teri Hoehler says that if the team is right, Europa is "a system that checks two requirements for life". Nasa and the European Space Agency hope to launch a probe to Europa to gather more evidence. ·
