Three Moons in Our Solar System That Might Currently Support Alien Life
(ANTIMEDIA) — Though it might not seem like it, we live in a fascinating era of space exploration. No, we still haven’t stepped foot on Mars. We haven’t returned to the moon in over forty years. We remain decades, if not centuries, from the technological capability to travel to other star systems. Yet despite these obstacles, we’re learning more than ever before about our universe, including what we don’t know, as evidenced by the inscrutable mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.
The universe is incomprehensibly vast, containing hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars — and many of these stars are orbited by planets. There are likely 100 billion planets in the Milky Way galaxy alone. In recent years, scientists have discovered and named hundreds of these exoplanets, though the vast majority remain unobserved. In the coming years, powerful new telescopes, coupled with artificial intelligence applications, will be able to identify likely candidates for life based on the biosignatures in exoplanets’ atmospheres.
According to the Drake equation, our universe is festooned with intelligent alien life. The Fermi Paradoxconfronts us with the question: if it’s so common, why haven’t we found it yet? Putting aside the theory that alien life is here and has been concealed (the UFO question is for another discussion), the Great Silence, as it’s called, is up there with dark matter as one of the more vexing scientific mysteries.
And yet, many scientists have gone public recently to state they believe we will discover alien life soon. The majority of them are referring to microbial life, though most agree the existence of intelligent alien life is overwhelmingly probable. However, simple life forms are probably vastly more abundant.
Many scientists believe our own solar system may contain alien life. The most promising candidates are cold moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn.
Europa
Many scientists view Jupiter’s moon, Europa, as one of the most promising spots to find life in the solar system. Located approximately 500 million miles from the sun, the icy satellite contains more water than all of the Earth — 3 billion cubic kilometers of water — underneath an astonishing 62 miles of solid ice. The ice keeps the water below from being blasted by harmful radiation, which might otherwise destroy any organic compounds that may live there.
The gravitational influence of Jupiter causes Europa to generate internal heat. The combination of water, energy, and organic chemicals makes it an alluring prospect. Additional features include underwater volcanoes that could create vents of bacterial life, which occurs here on Earth. The Jovian moon also contains enormous non-Terran, sub-surface lakes heated by tidal stresses.
NASA is already planning a mission to Europa in the late 2020s. A probe will dig up slush, looking for dead microbes, while other instruments will search for amino acids and lipids. The probe will also explore the recently discovered geyser-like plumes that blast ocean water into space. These plumes of sea water could contain tell-tale signs of life.
It may also be possible for probes to penetrate Europa’s crust and send cameras and sensors into the ocean below. This idea was featured in the science fiction film, The Europa Report, which explored the possibility of more advanced alien marine life living under the ice of the moon.
Steve Vance is part of the Europa mission science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“When I think about the fluxes of oxygen to Europa’s ocean, I wonder if Europa could have the kinds of vigorous biosphere that Earth has that supports larger forms of life,” Vance said, explaining the so-called ‘Lure of Europa.’ “And then the imagination can go wild thinking about fish and octopi and whatever else might live in an ocean that’s 100 kilometers deep.”
Ultimately, the existence and complexity of life on Europa comes down to the amount of heat generated by undersea vents, oxygen levels, and the nature of tidal friction and energy.
Titan
The second leading candidate for alien life in the solar system is Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. This satellite is often thought of as an early-model Earth because of its surface lakes, shorelines, seasons, and a thick nitrogen atmosphere that produces seasonal rainstorms. It is the only known place in the solar system besides Earth with stable bodies of liquid on its surface.
However, the liquids aren’t water, but rather hydrocarbons. It is so cold on Titan (-179 Celsius, or -290 Fahrenheit) that these methane and ethane compounds — which would be gases on Earth — are frozen liquids.
Because of its peculiar surface chemistry, Titan could harbor some very bizarre life forms. In speculating on how a liquid world with a completely different surface chemistry than Earth could sustain metabolic organisms, some astrobiologists imagine the possibility of life forms that breathe hydrogen and eat acetylene.
Recent discoveries have fueled even more speculation about the potential for weird life on Titan. As it turns out, seasonal weather in the moon’s atmosphere generates a molecule called vinyl cyanide. Scientists believe this molecule may be capable of self-assembling into membrane-like structures called azotosomes. There is an incredible amount of vinyl cyanide in Titan’s atmosphere, which comes to the surface in torrents of toxic rain. It is estimated that in one large lake, Ligeia Mare, there are 10 billion tons of it.
Researchers at Cornell University say the abundance of such a molecule in the cryogenic methane oceans and lakes of Titan make it theoretically possible for alien squid to exist. Ligeia Mare alone could harbor 36 billion of them.
Until a plutonium-powered probe return to Titan, however, we won’t know for sure.
Enceladus
Saturn’s sixth-largest moon is one of the most reflective bodies in the solar system. Due to orbital resonance, it is also geologically active and one of the most exciting candidates for alien life.
Recent discoveries confirm that geysers are spewing material from the moon’s vast under-ice oceans. Tiny fragments of minerals ejected from this hydrothermal spray suggest the oceans of Enceladus contain salts and silica dust that are heated by the moon’s core.
Observations and analysis of the moon’s elliptical orbit suggest the ocean is heated by a tidally heated permeable core and not radioactive decay, which expands the window of evolution from millions of years to billions of years.
According to David A Rothery, professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University, U.K.:
“Chemical reactions are going on even today. If it’s going on today it could have been going on a billion years into the past, and that’s long enough for life to get started—and to have evolved beyond the very most basic stages. It could be quite a complex microbial community down there and we’d love to study it.”
In other words, the conditions for life are right. Russian billionaire, Yuri Milner, is so convinced of microbial life on Enceladus that he has proposed funding a probe for a fly-by of the south pole.
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