Scientists are proposing a new source of fuel for potential alien life on Europa: Radioactive elements seeping out of rocks and into the moon\u2019s ocean, where it could generate enough energy to support living organisms.<\/p>\n
Research presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union<\/a> in New Orleans puts forth a new model for the potential for life on Jupiter\u2019s icy moon. The new model suggests that rocks themselves, rather than the moon\u2019s internal heat, may be the reason for Europa\u2019s possible habitability.<\/p>\n NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper mission, which launched in 2024, may be able to put this new theory to the test when it reaches the Jovian system in 2030<\/a>.<\/p>\n Just like home <\/p>\n Ngoc Tuan Truong, a planetary scientist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, was inspired by extreme habitats on Earth when he developed this new theory, according to Science<\/a>. On Earth, tiny organisms on the ocean floor rely on chemical reactions rather than sunlight for energy. The process is known as chemosynthesis, and it may be happening on Jupiter\u2019s moon as well.<\/p>\n Europa has a vast, saltwater ocean beneath its icy shell, with more than twice the amount of water in all of Earth\u2019s oceans combined. The presence of all this water, a key ingredient for life, has made Europa a prime target in the search for habitability<\/a> beyond our own world.<\/p>\n Unlike neighboring ocean moons Ganymede and Callisto, Europa\u2019s ocean is probably in direct contact with warm rock at the seafloor, according to NASA<\/a>. If radioactive material seeps out of those rocks over time, its natural decay would release heat and break apart water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen ions. Microbial life would then be able to snack on the energy in those ions, sustaining its existence, the new paper suggests.<\/p>\n Radioactive lunch <\/p>\n For the study, Truong and a team of researchers modeled the concentrations of three radioactive isotopes found in Europa\u2019s ocean: Uranium-235, Uranium-238, and potassium. The researchers then estimated the number of ions that would be released from the decay of those isotopes and found that it was enough to support quite a lot of life. The ions could feed\u00a0around 1 septillion cells, or the biomass of 1000 blue whales.<\/p>\n