On the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, there may be traces of life on the surface – Science and Technology

It would not be necessary to reach the oceans hidden under kilometers of ice: just scratchdirectly under the ice surfacetoDiscovery of traces of organic moleculesonEuropeJupiter’s mysterious moon, etc.Enceladusone of Saturn’s moons. That’s what a NASA experiment led by Alexander Pavlov of Goddard reported.Published In the journal Astrobiology.

For yearsEuropa and EnceladusI’m atcenter of attentionFrom scientists in researchpossible alien life formsIn our solar system, so much so that there is a hypothesis for creating robots capable of drilling kilometers through the thick surface layer of ice to reach the oceans below and take samples of water that could contain traces of alien life.

These are very complex tasks, and impossible at the moment, but there is hope.From experience NASA simulatedradiation that affect themSurface layers of iceFrom the two moons. In fact, these results suggest that organic molecules that are likely present in the seas below, and thus trapped in the ice, can survive radiation, unmodified by radiation, even at a depth of 20 centimeters below the surface.

Thus experience indicates thatTo find any amino acidsthe molecules necessary for every known form of life, could be enough to send itRoverable toFrozen Surface PenetrationTo a few tens of centimetres. Studying icy moons is among the goals of the European Space Agency’s GOCE mission, which began last year, and NASA’s Europa Clipper, which is due to launch by the end of the year.