What would life on Europa look like?

[NSEP]

What would life on Europa be like? Where there is absolutely no sunlight, never, and extremely high pressure. Just curious what the community here thinks.

[Scotius]

No eyes - that's for (almost) sure. Europan lifeforms probably would develop senses based on sound, changes in pressure, chemoreception, maybe even electroreception. Unless bioluminescence would be widespread - then eyes of some sort are not out of the question. But frankly - until we see first organism that evolved outside of Earth, such discussion will remain science fiction

[sevenperforce]

Most likely thing I would anticipate would be algae-like mats which can exploit mechanical forces to sustain themselves. Big long tendril vines stretching up from the seafloor.

Eyes are not entirely out of the question; hydrothermal vents might produce enough light to be detectable, producing selection pressure for rudimentary eyes.

[PB666]

the abilitiy to produuce lots of chaotropic agents in their circulatory system. The ability to use SO4 and NO2/3 and  methane producers. Extremely slow metabolism. No mitochondria or equivalent, no chloroplast or equivalent.

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-raised-layers-of-dirt-dust-fungi-spores-covering-surface-of-timber-69184475.html

[Rakaydos]

Isnt the primary abiotic oxidiser something formed in the upper ice due to jupiter's van allen belt?

They may not have sunlight, but they may have the chemical equivilant. How fast does europa rotate relative to jupiter?

[KerikBalm]

I'd think eyes and bioluminescence are unlikely.

Bioluminescence  probably wouldn't serve any purpose before organisms had light sensing organs, and light sensing organs wouldn't serve any purpose without light to detect. I don't see how it would get started. I doubt that there would be enough "glowing hot" magma to drive the evolution of photo receptors, at which point a feedback loop of light sensing and light productions could conceivably lead to something like that.

I'd guess it would be microbial and centered around hot spots on the sea floor. The ice is so thick, and the sun at jupiter is so weak, that I doubt there'd be anything clinging to the undersurface of the ice.

[magnemoe]

44 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Isnt the primary abiotic oxidiser something formed in the upper ice due to jupiter's van allen belt?

They may not have sunlight, but they may have the chemical equivilant. How fast does europa rotate relative to jupiter?

They should hope they have something better than geothermal vents. 
Yes its an ecosystem but the energy here is is pretty much ignoble compared to sunlight. 
This give an tiny and low energy biomass, since it took a long time for advanced life to appear, it should go far slower with an smaller ecosystem since its only random mutation for single celled organisms, unlikely we would find anything than bacteria. 
 

[justidutch]

If there's absolutely no sunlight, then life on Europa wouldn't look like anything.

[FleshJeb]

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

How fast does europa rotate relative to jupiter?

Tidally locked.

[sevenperforce]

33 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

2 hours ago, Rakaydos said:

Isnt the primary abiotic oxidiser something formed in the upper ice due to jupiter's van allen belt?

They may not have sunlight, but they may have the chemical equivilant. How fast does europa rotate relative to jupiter?

Tidally locked.

It's tidally locked, but its orbit around Jupiter is eccentric enough that it has substantial deformation over its 3.5-day orbit.

[FleshJeb]

48 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

It's tidally locked, but its orbit around Jupiter is eccentric enough that it has substantial deformation over its 3.5-day orbit.

Does this mean that the longitude line that points at Jupiter's center oscillates, but it averages out to the same place?

[sevenperforce]

24 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

Does this mean that the longitude line that points at Jupiter's center oscillates, but it averages out to the same place?

I'm sure there's some libration, just as with our moon, though probably less.

[NSEP]

18 hours ago, justidutch said:

If there's absolutely no sunlight, then life on Europa wouldn't look like anything.

Unless, you know, you observe them with a flashlight of some sort.

[NSEP]

Here is a funny little drawing i made

[cubinator]

My guess is that it would look similar to what we have at our geothermal vents. Possibly less complex.

[Streetwind]

I watched this TED talk yesterday about life hundreds of meters under the Earth's seafloors, without sunlight, without food, without any of the things we normally consider requirements for a thriving ecosystem.

 

[Green Baron]

I didn't watch the video, but in general microbial life in porous parts of earth's crust is nothing new, in principle it can occur as deep as temperatures permit.

But i don't precipitate on speculations about et life :-)

Edited March 1, 2018 by Green Baron