The Jovian moon Europa is probably the most likely extra-terrestrial locations in our solar system to host life, based on Earth’s ‘extremophiles’, bacteria around volcanic vents and such.
Given Europa’s status of ‘most likely to host life’, are there any special considerations NASA and other agencies make when it comes to its exploration? Are there any man-made objects to be found on its frozen surface, and just how likely are life-bearing oceans beneath the icy crust?
The Galileo space probe to Jupiter was deliberately steered into the atmosphere of that planet at the end of its mission to make sure it didn’t crash onto Europa and potentially contaminate it. (The oribiter also gathered data on the way down.)
Related note, the initial findings from drilling into Lake Vostok have not found any life yet, but I would have thought they wouldn’t find much until they get to the bottom layers of the lake, or even better the vicinity of a hydrothermal vent.
Nor has any mission yet landed on Europa, accidentally or deliberately. There are one or two missions in the planning stages, and there are extreme provisions in them to sterilize the crafts more thoroughly than anything has ever been sterilized before.
What’s the plan to break through the surface crust of ice?
The most optimistic estimates seem to be tens of kilometers thick, so assuming there is indeed an ocean of liquid H2O beneath this, even if we melt through it, we’d need to tether to a top-side base, so the probe could broadcast data/images. That’s a lot of cable.
Or is this sort of mission not even on the table right now?
the plan would be to use a nuclear RTG powered hybrid melter/drill that deployed a fibreoptic tether behind it.
http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/2855/drilling-down-to-alien-oceans
But yeah considering they haven’t tried that with any of the sub-glacial Antarctic lakes yet I’d say its a LONG way off.