It is claimed that sandwiched between the thick ice sheets of Europa (a satellite of Jupiter) and its rocky surface, could be a vast ocean almost twice as large that of earth, making the satellite a prime candidate for supporting extra terrestrial life. Although Europa is a fair distance from the sun, part of the enormous amount of ice could
have melted due to the varying gravitational pull of Jupiter. Even though the Star Wars series covered almost all kinds of planets - icy, swampy, desert covered, those with thick jungles and where people dwelt in clouds - they missed out on a world like Europa.
Europa itself is not a large heavenly body, being slightly smaller than our own moon, but the volume of water is so humungous that the oceans there should be more than 100km deep (Mariana trench is just 10km deep). Europa also would be a strange world, with an ice sheet acting as the skies and absolute absence of any land mass over the waterline. It is a world that only the seals can understand, that too partially. The depth of the ocean and the distance from the sun also translates to a predominantly dark place, where light could be as scarce as aurora borealis and conventional eyes could be meaningless. Few life specimens are likely to make it to the outer surface of Europa, the ice covering itself being extremely thick, ranging from 10-30km. By contrast, the ice thickness at Antarctica is only 2km (The thin ice model of Europa puts the thickness at just about 600 metres though). It would be interesting to know what kind of religion develops in a world where you can never go past the impenetrable skies of ice (till you have an earth equivalent of a rocket).
The little amount of sunlight that reaches the surface is an impediment to supporting life, but evidence has been found on earth of creatures, who base their food chain on a bacterium that fulfill its energy needs with just water and other chemicals like hydrogen. So, you can throw photosynthesis out of the window and still build a planet teeming with life.
If such an ocean does exist, I am going with the possibility of extra terrestrial life existing at Europa. What intrigues me though is the composition of life - does it feature simple microbes, or fairly intelligent specimens as well? It would be even interesting to find out how life evolves at Europa. What creatures survive and prosper over the next million of years, who stands out on the top of the evolution chain, how do the creatures communicate, and which senses are most prized? If they had to travel into space, what propulsion would they use, as fire would not be as common as on earth. And then there could be science fiction material - dolphins are originally the denizens of Europa, the creatures who originally carried life to earth. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
Europa itself is not a large heavenly body, being slightly smaller than our own moon, but the volume of water is so humungous that the oceans there should be more than 100km deep (Mariana trench is just 10km deep). Europa also would be a strange world, with an ice sheet acting as the skies and absolute absence of any land mass over the waterline. It is a world that only the seals can understand, that too partially. The depth of the ocean and the distance from the sun also translates to a predominantly dark place, where light could be as scarce as aurora borealis and conventional eyes could be meaningless. Few life specimens are likely to make it to the outer surface of Europa, the ice covering itself being extremely thick, ranging from 10-30km. By contrast, the ice thickness at Antarctica is only 2km (The thin ice model of Europa puts the thickness at just about 600 metres though). It would be interesting to know what kind of religion develops in a world where you can never go past the impenetrable skies of ice (till you have an earth equivalent of a rocket).
The little amount of sunlight that reaches the surface is an impediment to supporting life, but evidence has been found on earth of creatures, who base their food chain on a bacterium that fulfill its energy needs with just water and other chemicals like hydrogen. So, you can throw photosynthesis out of the window and still build a planet teeming with life.
If such an ocean does exist, I am going with the possibility of extra terrestrial life existing at Europa. What intrigues me though is the composition of life - does it feature simple microbes, or fairly intelligent specimens as well? It would be even interesting to find out how life evolves at Europa. What creatures survive and prosper over the next million of years, who stands out on the top of the evolution chain, how do the creatures communicate, and which senses are most prized? If they had to travel into space, what propulsion would they use, as fire would not be as common as on earth. And then there could be science fiction material - dolphins are originally the denizens of Europa, the creatures who originally carried life to earth. So long, and thanks for all the fish!
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