The Search For Life: Mars VS Europa

[Der Anfang]

I don't get it. It seems like there is a LOT more attention on Mars than there is for Europa when it comes to the search for life. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasons why we're looking on Mars. It's been proven to have liquid water on it's surface even today (under special conditions), but also has lake beds and signs of oceans in it's distant geological past. It still has an atmosphere, albeit a ver weak one. It's got more gravity than most other worlds, next to Earth and the gas giants. Mars is somewhat like Earth, at least in the past it was. It's also right next door from Earth, and depending on how you throw something at Mars, it could take less than a year to arrive to the red planet. And, finally, It is undeniably a beautiful and very mysterious looking planet. I hope to one day set foot on that planet, honestly. But, that is likely not going to happen. I certainly hope we really can get people there, though.

All that said, Mars is friggin awesome. And mysterious, and it had every right to be a candidate for the search for life. However, it is ridden with deadly radiation, and we don't really know if there is anything living on the surface. And many scientist only postulate that life could (or have) exist beneath the surface. There are plenty of reasons why we would think life could be on Mars right now, but there are plenty of reasons why it wouldn't exist right now (or may have never existed). I'm not saying that I don't think we shouldn't look: I am fairly optimistic in the fact that there might actually be something there, but the red planet is barren, and dry. There would be a lot of challenges of identifying any kind life there. Europa on the other hand... my god. First and foremost, I just have to say this: Europa is very visually pleasing, and there's just something about that moon that really makes me drawn to it. It's beautiful, in my opinion, and every time I look at it, I feel some sort of euphoria each time. There's so much we just don't know about Europa, and at the same time, there's a lot of stuff there that we theoretically understand, and yet, we have hardly made any efforts to truly prove or dispute our theories behind the mysterious and incredibly beautiful moon. And after seeing Europa Report a couple of years ago, it really made me wonder: why haven't we further explored this world?

We recently discovered that the moon had plate tectonics. Scientists believe that the moon has water geysers, much like Enceladus. There's also a lot of speculation that this world might even have massive subsurface oceans, which can be postulated based on the fact that their appears to be constant change on it's surface, as if sheets of thick ice are bobbing on top of water (okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get the idea). And as many scientists and astrobiologists have explained: where we have found water, we have found life. Of all places, we have 100% proven that mars can have stable liquid water (again, only under special conditions), but we haven't really observed water on Europa (have we? Correct me where I am wrong). In theory we believe there is water, but instead of focusing on a tectonically active ball of ice, we focus on a geologically dead rusty old planet.

I can see why we focus on Mars: my best understanding is that it is simply much closer, and it's something a lot of us would want to live on and colonize in the future. I would sort of have to disagree with humans spreading to other worlds, but that's another topic I will debate some other time. What is important is that we're trying to find alien life, even if it's just germs and simple bacteria. Even something simple like that would change the course of humanity. Europa is far. It's no joke. You're looking at at least three times the travel time it would take you to get to Mars. And the farther you have to fling yourself in the solar system, the more energy you need to expend. And that means you gotta pack a lot more fuel or use more efficient, but ludicrously expensive engines.And getting to Jupiter seems like the easy part: dealing with it's radiation is terrifying to say the least. Most equipment only lasts a few years around Jupiter before being fried beyond use. Those seem to be the primary deterrents of actually exploring Europa. It's not easy. But this begs the question: can't we just sit a lander on the far side of Europa? And even then, wouldn't anything beneath the the moon's icy surface be mostly shielded from the radiation, anyway?

I'm sure a good handful of people are aware of JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer). Or was it this? Okay, so there's a few plans for exploring Europa. But, given a lot of the possibilities, even considering a lot of the technological hurdles, I'm honestly surprised we don't focus more on Europa over Mars, which in my opinion, seems more a likely candidate to harbour life. What do you think? should we explore Europa more than Mars? Oh yeah, and for those of you who think we're doing it wrong, let's consider Titan as well. For all we know, the life we're looking for doesn't thrive on water at all, or is probably not carbon based. I haven't forgotten about that, and personally, I would agree with that statement. Unfortunately, Titan is a whole other ball park, and if you ask me, it seems like we should focus on more familiar territory and study it before we move into something we hardly understand at all. Anyway, Titan is another discussion, plus it's even further, so... let's hold off on that for now.

[Signo]

Well, as far as I am aware at the moment people is more concerned of the possible "contamination" of an alien ecosystem than of the true discovery of "aliens" of any kind.

If I recall it correctly Galileo was set on collision course with Jupiter to avoid any possible Europa contamination. And Curiosity was sent to observe "martian waters" from very far away for the same reasons.

If you think about Titan is a really cool place. It is perhaps the only other place apart from Earth were we could stand a couple of breathless minutes without an EVA suit before dying. There are many "anaerobics" on Earth too, there is no actual reason why there should not be any up there.

And do not forget Enceladus or Pluto itself. There are many places that could host "life" in our solar system.

 

 

[cubinator]

The problem with Europa is that you need a spacecraft that can fly a large probe to Jupiter, then land that probe on Europa, then drill through many kilometers of ice, and still be a functional submarine that can get to the bottom of the ocean and move around, collecting and sending back data to Earth through all that ice. It's a ridiculously difficult thing to accomplish, and I honestly don't think we'll get around to it until there are actual humans living in the Jupiter system. I do think it's one of the most promising candidates for extraterrestrial life that's anywhere near within reach, along with the other icy moons.

Edited September 15, 2016 by cubinator

[KerikBalm]

one doesn't need a submarine for europa, nor to go to the bottom of the ocean. A water sample would be amazingly telling.

Still landing something on the surface that can drill through all that ice and take a sample would be very very difficult

[todofwar]

13 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

one doesn't need a submarine for europa, nor to go to the bottom of the ocean. A water sample would be amazingly telling.

Still landing something on the surface that can drill through all that ice and take a sample would be very very difficult

If there is enough cycling of water to the surface as ice, even over millions of years, you could even learn a bit from a few meters into the ice

[KerikBalm]

my guess is that the intense radiation would decompose any complex biomolecules, and it would be hard to tell if any detected organics were the result of degradation of a complex molecule, or if its simply a "pre-biotic soup"

The other option is to fly through a plume when a geyser erupts... which I believe has actually already happened... but the actual amount of sample you get that way is really small, and I think the spacecraft didn't have the proper equipment to analyze it for life... I may be confusing Europa with Enceledus here... but there are strong similarities between the two as far as how one would look for life

[Green Baron]

Data scans for lifeforms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpC9Qiz8bvY

 

Mars is the only realistic candidate for an active search for life and its metabolism products in the next decades, i dare say.

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by Green Baron

[ment18]

Maybe one could take a nuclear reactor attached to a long cable on a spool with instruments on it.  You could start the reactor and then lower it into the ice to melt a shaft.  You could leave the cable in you wake.  Then you could detach a sub under the ice and use sonar to communicate between the sub surface receiver.  Then the receiver could send data to the surface through the cable which transmits data through the lander.

The cable would be heavy.  Also, need to do math for how much reactor.  The ice would re freeze aroung the cable.

Edited September 15, 2016 by ment18

[cubinator]

33 minutes ago, ment18 said:

The cable would be heavy.

Which is why I say we won't be able to do this properly until there are humans in the Jupiter system who are able to build such equipment with local resources instead of having to haul everything on giant expensive rockets from Earth. Although Europa may be more promising, Mars is a much more viable option in the near term.

[magnemoe]

29 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Which is why I say we won't be able to do this properly until there are humans in the Jupiter system who are able to build such equipment with local resources instead of having to haul everything on giant expensive rockets from Earth. Although Europa may be more promising, Mars is a much more viable option in the near term.

Cable would be an fiber optical one like used on remote underwater crafts, not that heavy, another option is to have the melter drop weights so it move back up trough the ice.
Yes its far harder than an mars mission but also more interesting, taking an surface sample would be an first step, even if life could exist on ice moons its far from sure it could evolve on them.
Interesting in at it could easy be independet from earth unlike mars. 
 

[Wjolcz]

Mars is a terrestrial planet. We know that life can exist on terrestrial planets (we live on one). We know there was liquid water on Mars. Europa is all ice and maybe liquid water. We don't even know if it has an ocean. Mars is closer and easier to land on. Europa has no atmosphere to slow your landers down. There's also the Jupiter's radiation that would screw with the electronics on board of the lander.

As much as I would love to know more about what's going on on Europa, the easier and more promising target is Mars right now. But I believe we will get to land on both of the bodies some day.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Veeltch

[Bill Phil]

43 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Mars is a terrestrial planet. We know that life can exist on terrestrial planets (we live on one). We know there was liquid water on Mars. Europa is all ice and maybe liquid water. We don't even know if it has an ocean. Mars is closer and easier to land on. Europa has no atmosphere to slow your landers down. There's also the Jupiter's radiation that would screw with the electronics on board of the lander.

As much as I would love to know more about what's going on on Europa, the easier and more promising target is Mars right now. But I believe we will get to land on both of the bodies some day.

Mars is not that easy to land on (relative to Europa), it's atmosphere hardly helps.

Yeah, we don't know enough about Europa, but Enceladus is much more likely to have a subsurface ocean (we've seen water geysers...). 

[Wjolcz]

6 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Mars is not that easy to land on (relative to Europa), it's atmosphere hardly helps.

Yeah, the atmosphere is pretty thin on Mars, but enough to let spacecraft aerobrake, unlike on Europe. And I'm aware there are other ways of getting captured. I'm curious, what's the actual dV to perform a direct descend on Europa and Mars?

EDIT: Nevermind that question. Of course the dV for Mars is higher. I'm a tired dum dum. Need to go to sleep now.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Veeltch

[Finox]

We haven't done an in-depth survey of Europa for the same reason we haven't done it on all of the outer planets: power.   Unfortunately nuclear reactors can't be flown for political reasons but how else can you transmit back the large amounts of data that a detailed survey would entail?   Not to mention that we would really need something like ground penetrating radar (a HUGE power hog) to even begin to explore beneath Europa's surface.   Mars is better explored for the simple reason that solar power is plentiful at its orbit, at least in comparison with the outer planets.

It's certainly a shame we haven't been able to mount more missions to the outer planets, I was really looking forward to JIMO before it got cancelled.

Edited September 17, 2016 by Finox

[Guest]

Could reacting the probe's way down through the surface be possible (i.e. using chemicals to "melt" through the surface; maybe they could be produced in situ?) ?

Edited September 17, 2016 by Guest

[todofwar]

10 hours ago, Aperture Science said:

Could reacting the probe's way down through the surface be possible (i.e. using chemicals to "melt" through the surface; maybe they could be produced in situ?) ?

You couldn't do it in situ, but if you brought along a hunk of cesium metal it might get you pretty deep as it reacts with water. If you brought some oxygen around, you could try and capture the hydrogen produced in the reaction and burn it for extra heat. But I would have to do maths to figure out just how much you'll need and my gut tells me it will be way too much cesium. Lighter elements like sodium or lithium also work, but are less exothermic, so there's a tradeoff somewhere.

[Spaceception]

I think Europa is much more promising, constant source of energy, lots and lots of liquid water, organics, I'd say it's much more suitable for life than Mars, unless it's like subterranean life that's been isolated for hundreds of millions of years.

[YNM]

Honestly, I think we should. Enceladus, Europa, Titan... Worlds waiting to be discovered.

But Mars shouldn't stop. Get that rover to the RSLs, please !

[Waxing_Kibbous]

We need to be really careful about looking for life in potential places- not until a craft can become 100% clear of any DNA and guarantee it will not be detrimental in other ways should we poke around in other places.

[kerbiloid]

They can use a nuclear bathyscaphe. First it melts down throw the ice. Then it drops ballast and melts up. No need in cables.

(Also they should bring battle axes: to cut off tentacles of the extraterrestrial octopuses or what it was in Europa Report.)

Edited September 18, 2016 by kerbiloid