What to do if we discover life on Europa?

[Idobox]

Topless French women EVERYWHERE.

Back to the real question. I think we'd send out a LOT of probes, and MAYBE in 50-100 years send a manned mission.

Well, given that I'm French myself, I seriously hope there's something more exotic up there. It is so much more difficult to go to Europa than to ride my bike to the beach.

[KerikBalm]

Well, given that I'm French myself, I seriously hope there's something more exotic up there. It is so much more difficult to go to Europa than to ride my bike to the beach.

Topless "friendly" french women EVERYWHERE and no guys in sight...? if you know what I'm saying....

[Idobox]

Topless "friendly" french women EVERYWHERE and no guys in sight...? if you know what I'm saying....

Renting a whole strip club for yourself is still cheaper, easier, and slightly less risky.

[NERVAfan]

We have no idea what the European ocean looks like, it might be more similar to Earth than we expect. And even if it isn't, it doesn't mean life from there couldn't become invasive. Imagine simply cells very close to bacteria, but that are 10% more efficient in turning glucose into ATP, they would replace Earth bacteria in decades.

There is far more involved than that.

They'd have to be able to deal with Earth's oxygen levels (or be limited to anoxic niches). They'd have to be able to feed off Earth life, which would have a different set of amino acids etc. (Europan producers would be limited to very narrow niches like black smokers/cold seeps on Earth - they wouldn't photosynthesize).

Even if they COULD feed off Earth life, at best they'd take some decomposer niches. "Bacteria" aren't just one niche, so replacing Earth bacteria in decades is not possible. Europan life would never replace e.g. photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, they wouldn't replace bacteria that are symbiotic with plants or animals, and so on.

Also, there are several different respiration mechanisms used by Earth microbes, do we know they haven't already found the "optimum" (at least assuming a sensible environment e.g. no free fluorine for respiration)?

EDIT: Anyway, my original point was about pathogenicity not being plausible. Competition is possible (though I think unlikely) but it wouldn't rise to the scale of replacing all bacteria or anything like that.

Edited August 29, 2014 by NERVAfan

[NERVAfan]

Highly unlikely, if there is heat to warm the H20 to make it into ice, then there is a thermal gradient available, which can drive some chemistry similar to "black smokers" on Earth, which life uses for energy and is not nuclear in nature.

Essentially, though those lifeforms use chemical energy (chemosynthesis) rather than thermal gradient in the way a thermocouple would -- the black smoker is releasing the sulfur compounds etc. used.

[NFUN]

....Life on Europa?

Any chanche there is oil underground?

If so, then I may have a pretty vivid idea.

There is an xkcd for everything... (it is relevant enough).

[Idobox]

There is far more involved than that.

They'd have to be able to deal with Earth's oxygen levels (or be limited to anoxic niches). They'd have to be able to feed off Earth life, which would have a different set of amino acids etc. (Europan producers would be limited to very narrow niches like black smokers/cold seeps on Earth - they wouldn't photosynthesize).

Even if they COULD feed off Earth life, at best they'd take some decomposer niches. "Bacteria" aren't just one niche, so replacing Earth bacteria in decades is not possible. Europan life would never replace e.g. photosynthesizing cyanobacteria, they wouldn't replace bacteria that are symbiotic with plants or animals, and so on.

Also, there are several different respiration mechanisms used by Earth microbes, do we know they haven't already found the "optimum" (at least assuming a sensible environment e.g. no free fluorine for respiration)?

EDIT: Anyway, my original point was about pathogenicity not being plausible. Competition is possible (though I think unlikely) but it wouldn't rise to the scale of replacing all bacteria or anything like that.

There are plenty of simple molecules that bacterias can feed on, like glucose for example. If Europa life has a common ancestor with Earth, it is very likely they can feed by burning sugar with oxygen. And whatever source of energy they use, life will need carbon, the easiest way to find carbon underwater is to decompose carbonic acid and carbon dioxide, which would release oxygen in the water.

If sugar eating alien bacteria arrive on Earth, and are more efficient, they will completely occupy that nice very quickly, causing health risks. Then, because bacteria evolve quickly, they would adapt to other niches.

[magnemoe]

There are plenty of simple molecules that bacterias can feed on, like glucose for example. If Europa life has a common ancestor with Earth, it is very likely they can feed by burning sugar with oxygen. And whatever source of energy they use, life will need carbon, the easiest way to find carbon underwater is to decompose carbonic acid and carbon dioxide, which would release oxygen in the water.

If sugar eating alien bacteria arrive on Earth, and are more efficient, they will completely occupy that nice very quickly, causing health risks. Then, because bacteria evolve quickly, they would adapt to other niches.

Decent chance that earth has received life from Europa multiple times during the last 3.5 billion years, bacteria freezes in ice and move close to surface, impact throw ice into Jupiter orbit, gravity assist to inner solar system, core of ice block survives trough earth atmosphere and end up in the sea.

yes you would take safety measures for an sample return, this is not so hard either for an small sample return pod.

[KerikBalm]

"'Decent chance that earth has received life from Europa multiple times during the last 3.5 billion years,"

That is first assuming there is life

"bacteria freezes in ice and move close to surface, "

Where it is killed by radiation? Bacteria must be metabolically active to repair the damge caused by radiation

"impact throw ice into Jupiter orbit,"

Given that most large impactors will hit jupiter... and once in orbit, it still has to deal with the radiation

"gravity assist to inner solar system"

Gravity assist from what?

"core of ice block survives trough earth atmosphere"

Unlikely... it would have to be a pretty big chunk, but I don't think you'd get that many, especially as it would be sublimating like a comet, except it will be much shorter lived because its still much smaller... and it could be drifting for a long time.

I think transfer from Mars happens a lot more than from Europa... its a much smaller grav well to escape from, yet a bigger one to pull impactors on to it.

And of course, its closer and easier to get from mars orbit to Earth orbit than to go jupiter -> mars

I'm still betting on Europa being sterile, so when combined with all the other factors, I think its a pretty bad chance.

Now lets go send a probe and settle this

[YNM]

If there could be the drill and the sub, humans shouldn't be a problem, no ? Just look at how we drilled the antarctic ice sheet...

But what to do next is, of course, study them. Not sure how the ecosystem would be, but I suppose having some kind of resources deeper below the ocean floor can be attractive...

[Aningaaq]

If there could be the drill and the sub, humans shouldn't be a problem, no ? Just look at how we drilled the antarctic ice sheet...

But what to do next is, of course, study them. Not sure how the ecosystem would be, but I suppose having some kind of resources deeper below the ocean floor can be attractive...

Wouldn't subsurface mapping need to occur before drilling? I mean, how can they design a drill without knowing how far they need to drill and other variables. I imagine one could make educated guesses but it would make more sense, maybe not economically, to send a probe that uses electromagnetic waves to map subsurface features.

[Idobox]

If there could be the drill and the sub, humans shouldn't be a problem, no ? Just look at how we drilled the antarctic ice sheet...

But what to do next is, of course, study them. Not sure how the ecosystem would be, but I suppose having some kind of resources deeper below the ocean floor can be attractive...

If we can send a robot the size of a car to Mars, humans shouldn't be problem, no?

People are heavy, and they need much heavier life support and radiation shielding. Also, most people would have issues with sending people one way, or even on 20 years long missions.

Wouldn't subsurface mapping need to occur before drilling? I mean, how can they design a drill without knowing how far they need to drill and other variables. I imagine one could make educated guesses but it would make more sense, maybe not economically, to send a probe that uses electromagnetic waves to map subsurface features.

I'm not sure there are tools that can do that at a distance. Maybe a gravitometer?

Anyway, if the ocean exists, it is caused by tidal heating, which will be stronger close to the equator. If there is liquid water, it will be thicker close to the equator.

Surface photography can also show cryovolcanic activity, and indicate areas were the crust is thinner.

[Aningaaq]

I'm not sure there are tools that can do that at a distance. Maybe a gravitometer?

Anyway, if the ocean exists, it is caused by tidal heating, which will be stronger close to the equator. If there is liquid water, it will be thicker close to the equator.

Surface photography can also show cryovolcanic activity, and indicate areas were the crust is thinner.

Ground-penetrating radar is used for such a thing. Although, it would have to be either a ground probe that scans along the surface or similar to the set up that Rosetta/Philae will use (CONSERT). I'm not sure if something like CONSERT would work with Europa due to it's diameter. But yeah, it would require for a probe to land and to survey. All I know is that it would be a disappointment to make a drill and to have it not long enough to get to past the ice and into the water!

[SuperWeegee4000]

Decent chance that earth has received life from Europa multiple times during the last 3.5 billion years, bacteria freezes in ice and move close to surface, impact throw ice into Jupiter orbit, gravity assist to inner solar system, core of ice block survives trough earth atmosphere and end up in the sea.

yes you would take safety measures for an sample return, this is not so hard either for an small sample return pod.

I think you mean a sample return mission. Very true, however.

[Aningaaq]

I never actually answered the first question by the original poster:

We find life on Europa then we try to find out "can we eat this?" and if the answer is "yes" then it becomes a food source. The first interstellar branch of McDonalds is built on Europa by 2030. Just kidding.

I don't know, I guess we study the life as much as we can!

[GreatWyrmGold]

One of the most important questions would be: "Did life arise on Europa independently of life on Earth?". If it did the implications would be immense.

The implications of if it didn't are pretty big, too. It's unlikely that life would have gone from one world to the other (though admittedly not impossible); therefore, the implication would be that it spread from somewhere else, likely via comets in deep space. If this is the case, one would expect to find life on every potentially-life-bearing world in the universe, or at minimum the corner with the life-causing stuff.

Although, for there to be relatively large numbers of life-forms in Europa, there would need to be a source of energy, and the sun won't cut it as it is very far away and is blocked by a massive sheet of ice. There would be more hype over reverse-engineering the nuclear fission respiration used by these life-forms.

I vaguely recall reading somewhere that tidal forces from Jupiter heat Europa's core (or something like that), which I'd imagine it part of how the ocean is liquid. If it's Europa that I'm thinking of, then that's an obvious source.

....Life on Europa?

Any chanche there is oil underground?

If so, then I may have a pretty vivid idea.

Even if there was oil, the fact that you'd have to fly drilling equipment there, drill through thick ice and an ocean (without any chance of fixing anything that breaks), fly the oil back home, and deal with huge backlash. Oil prices would need to rise dramatically before that became profitable...it would be cheaper to send huge solar panels into orbit and beam electricity back to Earth.

Most likely, if we found life on Europa, we'd gather as much data about it with the probe we sent (likely not much aside from "how fast does it swim away?" if the probe wasn't specifically designed to look for life, eg filtering water to find bacteria or somesuch), then begin designing a probe to study that life further. Also, NASA and the like would get more public interest and maybe more funding.

[KerbMav]

Also, NASA and the like would get more public interest and maybe more funding.

Must ... resist urge ... to politically comment ... religious groups' influence ... gnnaaahh!!

[jfull]

I do think it would be for the best to keep the biospheres of Earth and Europa completely separate. That would mean no Humans (and the vast numbers of microorganisms that they carry) landing on Europa, and no living samples being returned to Earth.

However, that doesn't completely eliminate the possibility of some kind of manned mission, or sample collection.

If a probe found convincing signs of life, a manned outpost could be constructed in orbit of Europa, or on the surface of a nearby moon (like Ganymede). A team on this outpost would be able to operate robotic missions on Europa without the huge time-delay of doing so from Earth. They would be able to receive and study live samples collected from Europa without the risk and expense of returning them to Earth.

Also, if the outpost was located on another of Jupiter's moons, they could (with time) begin designing, fabricating, and launching their robotic craft to Europa, allowing for much more rapid exploration. (If something went wrong with a piece of machinery on Europa, it would only take a few days for a replacement to arrive.)

I don't expect to see that outpost within my lifetime, but I think it could happen within a century of life being discovered on Europa.

[KerikBalm]

The implications of if it didn't are pretty big, too. It's unlikely that life would have gone from one world to the other (though admittedly not impossible); therefore, the implication would be that it spread from somewhere else, likely via comets in deep space. If this is the case, one would expect to find life on every potentially-life-bearing world in the universe, or at minimum the corner with the life-causing stuff.

Let me get this straight... to you... life going from one world to another is less likely than life going from one star system to another?

Most likely, if we found life on Europa, we'd gather as much data about it with the probe we sent (likely not much aside from "how fast does it swim away?" if the probe wasn't specifically designed to look for life, eg filtering water to find bacteria or somesuch), then begin designing a probe to study that life further. Also, NASA and the like would get more public interest and maybe more funding.

If we went to Europe, the probe would most definitely be designed to look for life. Life is much more than things that swim away... We'd likely at least send a mass spec, which could tell us a whole lot about the alien biochemistry, and answer very rapidly the question "do we have a common origin?"

Lets send an RTG powered probe there, NAO... melt through that ice with hot plutonium, and start doing mass spec on the ocean.

And, of course, do one for enceledus too

[Aningaaq]

Lets send an RTG powered probe there, NAO... melt through that ice with hot plutonium, and start doing mass spec on the ocean.

And, of course, do one for enceledus too

The thickness of the ice could be at least 20 kilometers deep. I think it is a bit premature to think "drill! melt the ice!". A geophysical survey of the potential test site is necessary before they decide on a design that could actually reach the ocean while not being total overkill. I've read a paper that suggested that instead of drilling into the deep ocean, we could search for "lakes" that are much more closer to the surface. Maybe 3-5 kilometers deep. This theory was proposed through data from geophysical research conducted in Antarctica. You can google it if you'd like. It's out there. Interesting read.

[Idobox]

Ground-penetrating radar is used for such a thing. Although, it would have to be either a ground probe that scans along the surface or similar to the set up that Rosetta/Philae will use (CONSERT). I'm not sure if something like CONSERT would work with Europa due to it's diameter. But yeah, it would require for a probe to land and to survey. All I know is that it would be a disappointment to make a drill and to have it not long enough to get to past the ice and into the water!

Does it work from orbit with tens of km of ice? You would need to use a frequency at which water is reflective, but ice is very transparent, and high enough to get decent resolution, but below THz range (maximum frequency for current radar technology).

[Aningaaq]

Does it work from orbit with tens of km of ice? You would need to use a frequency at which water is reflective, but ice is very transparent, and high enough to get decent resolution, but below THz range (maximum frequency for current radar technology).

Rosetta's CONSERT functions from orbit however the diameter of the comet is much smaller than Europa. GPR works best on the surface of the planet, perhaps attached to a Rover. Mars 2020 Rover (NASA) with have GPR. The Chinese have GPR on the moon right now with Yutu I think. Many of the surveys on earth with GPR are done by pulling a sled/cart with the GPR attached. I've heard that you can do aerial surveys as well with GPR (since air is not reflective in regards to electromagnetic waves).

Generally, you want lower frequencies if you want to penetrate deeply. Personally, I've only used as low as 200 MHz antenna's in my research but I've seen ice surveys use 90 Mhz and lower. I've only used these instruments in archaeological settings and never ice. I believe there is a way to interpret between ice and water. However, I couldn't tell you how. But there are many papers out there which show this capability. The biggest issue is finding a site to survey and as you said, selecting the right frequency for deep penetrating. It would be great to explore the oceans of Europa but I believe the lakes might also be fruitful and easier to penetrate with GPR and a drill. I'm all for exploring the oceans and lakes (if they are actually there).

Here is a sample slice image from an ice survey in Antarctica. I believe it only goes down 300 meters though. Not sure what frequency the antenna was.

Another interesting image showing various slices and variations in ice below the surface: http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/polythermalglaciers/figure4.png

[KerikBalm]

The thickness of the ice could be at least 20 kilometers deep. I think it is a bit premature to think "drill! melt the ice!". A geophysical survey of the potential test site is necessary before they decide on a design that could actually reach the ocean while not being total overkill. I've read a paper that suggested that instead of drilling into the deep ocean, we could search for "lakes" that are much more closer to the surface. Maybe 3-5 kilometers deep. This theory was proposed through data from geophysical research conducted in Antarctica. You can google it if you'd like. It's out there. Interesting read.

Yes, my "NAO" comment was a bit sarcastic/ intentionally over the top.

We should send a probe, and pick the best place to look.

I'll point out that many samples of Earth taken from the Atacama desert appeared to be sterile, they weren't able to culture anything from them... A planet with life may not have life everywhere.

Earth has life *nearly* everywhere, and even the atacama desert has some viable spores, the density is just so low that some samples did appear to be sterile.

I still harbor a bit of hope for even mars.. underground, near those geysers, at the deepest point (hellas basin).

The lakes would be risky, they might not have life even if the ocean does.

[Thesla]

first thing we need to do is mock the creationists to death!

[Aningaaq]

Yes, my "NAO" comment was a bit sarcastic/ intentionally over the top.

We should send a probe, and pick the best place to look.

I'll point out that many samples of Earth taken from the Atacama desert appeared to be sterile, they weren't able to culture anything from them... A planet with life may not have life everywhere.

Earth has life *nearly* everywhere, and even the atacama desert has some viable spores, the density is just so low that some samples did appear to be sterile.

I still harbor a bit of hope for even mars.. underground, near those geysers, at the deepest point (hellas basin).

The lakes would be risky, they might not have life even if the ocean does.

I suppose the limitations of GPR are a cause of concern considering the depth of the oceans and potential drilling areas. The technology is always advancing though. Keep a look out for articles about GPR and Europa as they might be coming up if the project becomes more of a reality. I'm in no where an expert but I think it might be of some use from what I've seen from GPR implementation in rovers/satellites.

The lakes would be risky for sure. But it is less area to cover and probably easier to have accurate depth calculations for drilling. However, if the lake is totally dead then we would be limited to just that lake whereas the ocean could potentially have life or even indications of life once being there.

first thing we need to do is mock the creationists to death!

Respect tradition is what I always say. Science can provide amazing answers but religion is embedded in our culture. Fighting is something science should not get involved with when it comes to religion. An intelligent individual will recognize the benefits of applying and understanding science, religious or not. I say, we keep religion out of this thread for the sake of scientific discussion. Just my opinion though!