In late 2012 NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spotted what appeared to be plumes of water vapor spewing from the frozen surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Another observation last year provided more evidence this was not a fluke. It is likely that below that distant world’s ice is an ocean larger than all of Earth’s combined. This created a frenzy in the astrobiological community—brimming with all that water, could Europa also have the necessary ingredients for life?
Now NASA is gearing up for a robotic mission to this mysterious moon. The Europa Clipper is slated to launch in the early 2020s, equipped with instruments for imaging, sampling and analyzing just what lies within the distant world. NASA scientists have plenty of experience in relaying information from faraway probes back to Earth—but the actual tools for measuring the stuff of life in situ are less familiar, so scientists have turned to our planet’s own deep ocean for answers. “Technologically, we share mutual goals and approaches with deep-ocean scientists,” says Mary Voytek, director of NASA’s Astrobiology Program. “We look to understanding what's going on here on Earth in order for us to understand what’s going on beyond Earth.”
They don't have to go that far to find ET life under an ocean. Stop the charade. To read more and view the video, click here.