Mankind has been thinking about extraterrestrial life every since we developed a cerebral cortex and could “think” about anything.  Discovering evidence of life anywhere else, life of any kind, is the “Holy Grail” of astrophysicists and astrobiologists.  We’re all pretty sure we aren’t going to find another civilization in our solar system, but what about microbial life.

What are the chances that microbial life has developed somewhere else in our solar system?

The chances are, honestly, pretty good.  There are a couple of places I could talk about off the top of my head that would be a good candidate for microbial life (often referred to as “critters”) to have developed… but I want to talk about one very special place today.

Europa.

Image:  Europa as seen by Galileo spacecraft  NASA/JPL

What makes Europa so special and exciting?  Liquid water, for one thing.  Science is reasonably sure that the majority of life they locate will be carbon-based (there’s a good reason for that, trust me), and dependent on liquid water to survive (there’s another good reason for that).  Looking on Mars for traces of fossilized life is exciting… but what about digging under the ice crust of Europa to the ocean of liquid water believed to exist?  Do you think we’ll find any critters there?

I bet we do.

Look at Earth for a moment.  Life is everywhere here, and I do mean everywhere.  It lives in solid rock, digesting minerals for energy.  It lives in ice.  It lives in salt mines.  It lives on the floor of the ocean.

Whoa.  Back up… the floor of the ocean?  Cold, no sunlight, horrible pressure… that floor of the ocean?  You betcha.  And not just critters, there.  Complex organisms, going about their daily lives perfectly happy in an environment very close to what we believe will be found under the ice of Europa.

There is another place on Earth where it looks like conditions are very close to Europa:  Lake Vostok in Antarctica.  Have you read about that?  It’s amazing… this lake has been frozen over, away from outside influence, for about a million years.

Lake Vostok  NASA/JPL Goddard  RADARSAT image

There’s liquid water under that ice sheet, away from sunlight and environmental influences.  Current projects are underway to find a method of getting to the Lake Vostok environment and studying it without contaminating it.  And kids, whatever method works for Lake Vostok will work for Europa.

So, is there other life in the universe?  Oh, yeah, I’d say that’s probably a given.  Is there other life in our solar system?  You know what?  I think there is.

What do you think?