Europa: Is There Life on Jupiter's Frozen Moon?

this video is brought to you by squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business check out squarespace through the link in the description below more on them in a bit around 600 million kilometers from earth lies on the most fascinating worlds in our solar system one of jupiter's four galilean moons europa from the outside looks like a gigantic ball of cracked ice a highly reflective bauble shining in the night sky tidally locked to its parent planet it withstands insane gravitational effects effects that stretch and distort its surface likely powering hidden volcanoes yet it's not the exterior of europa that makes one of the most distant moons so fascinating but rather what's inside some 15 kilometers below the frozen surface is thought to lie a dark and alien ocean one with so much volume it contains more water than every ocean on earth combined and that raises an incredible possibility europa may be the closest object to our own world to support life the subject of a multi-billion dollar flagship mission by nasa europa today is on the cusp of revealing some of its mysteries mysteries that could change the way we think about the universe in other words there's no time like the present to explore the tale of jupiter's remarkable frozen moon on a clear night one of the coolest things you can do is take even a reasonably powerful amateur telescope and point it in the direction of jupiter thanks to its gigantic size and light reflecting clouds the king of the planets is one of the most visible objects in the night sky as bright as mars despite being hundreds of millions of kilometers further away but it's not jupiter itself that we're gazing at today but its companions see them those four pin pricks of light beside the gas giant those are the four classical jovian moons often called the galilean moons after their discoverer galileo galilei known as io europa ganymede and callisto each is interesting in its own right but the most interesting of all is almost certainly jupiter's second satellite europa with about 90 the mass of our moon europa is at first glance a familiar beast something you could teleport into our night sky and have it fit right in but take a second or third glance or just one long perverted layer and it quickly becomes apparent that our moon and europa have almost nothing in common just as v source michael and i don't know some other brainy youtuber might look similar from a distance but have their own delightful quirks when you get to know them so too does europa have its own distinct thing going on unlike the barren rocky and super ancient surface of our moon europa is covered in an icy shell that renews its surface roughly every 60 million years this makes it incredibly bright to look at according to nasa if we really were to teleport europa into orbit with earth it would appear over five times brighter than the moon yet this young icy surface is only the beginning of what makes europa special lying so close to its parent planet europa has a spectacularly short orbit of just 3.5 days it's also tidally locked meaning the same side is always facing jupiter but the coolest thing maybe its relationship with the other galilean moons together with volcanic io and the monster-sized ganymede europa is what planetary scientists call resonance this means the three moons subtly attract one another as they whizz around jupiter exerting just enough gravitational pull to keep their orbits from becoming perfect circles that means europa's distance from jupiter shifts slightly as it makes its way around and since jupiter's gravity is so powerful that shifting causes jupiter to sometimes tug on it less sometimes more creating huge tidal effects that's why europa's surface is covered in thin cracks it's also one of the main reasons very smart people get very excited about the idea of life beneath its surface but we'll come back to this section a little later for now just remember that europa's orbit is elliptical and this causes jupiter to inconsistently targeted like a lazy baby half-assed trying to pull a toy out of its siblings hands the last thing we need to mention is europa's subsurface ocean to be absolutely clear the existence of this ocean one buried beneath 15 to 25 kilometers of ice is yet to be confirmed but it could yet turn out to be as real as your high school girlfriend that no one ever saw because she totally lived in canada that said there is persuasive evidence we've known since the late 90s that jupiter's magnetic field goes all weird and wibbly around europa meaning the ice moon might just contain some material that's capable of disrupting it one material that would produce exactly these effects is a europa-sized ocean of salty water and given that we already know the surface is water ice it seems logical to assume a giant subsurface ocean exists on top of that there's evidence the moon sometimes expels plumes of liquid water into space meaning that it would need a constant supply of material to eject if this ocean does exist it's likely the most impressive in our solar system at its deepest it could be up to 150 kilometers deep a depth that would make the marianas trench look like a water-filled pothole down there in the darkness there would be no light no light except for maybe the occasional flashes of orange as yet another undersea volcano briefly flares with magma it would in short be a truly alien world one million miles from our moon's dusty lifeless planes one perhaps worth exploring all of which begs a question how did we know to look here in the first place on january the 7th 1610 galileo galilei stood beneath the dark skies of italy his homemade telescope trained on jupiter it was only in the last year that the polymath had turned to astronomy but already had made observations of the moon that proved that its surface wasn't smooth now though he was about to make his greatest discovery yet as he observed jupiter that chilly winter's evening galileo could pick out three pinpricks of light next to the planet yet these didn't behave like any ordinary stars over the next few nights galileo watched as these three lights seemed to cling to jupiter changing their positions even as they never left its orbit before long had spotted a fourth star behaving in the same way by january 15th a realization was dawning these weren't stars that had spotted but moons moons that orbited jupiter as surely as our moon orbits the earth it was a revelation that would help usher in a brand new era of planetary science yet for any being operating on the same time scale as those four moons this new scientific era would have gone past in less than the blink of an eye while the story of mankind's association with europa begins in italy 411 years ago the story of europa begins itself way back how far back well that would be about 4.5 billion years ago in this stage of the solar system's infancy the major planets have mostly formed leaving dusty disks of leftover material in the orbit of jupiter that material began to collect into separate bodies until recently we assumed this took place with kilometer-sized pieces of rock crashing into one another and building up mass quickly but a couple of papers released in 2020 and 2021 have argued that in fact europa started much smaller as a tiny seed of dust that slowly picked up mass as it circled in towards jupiter beginning when the gas giant was only some 40 percent complete it's now thought that all four galilean moons formed over about a million years reaching their final stages at different times for europa this occurred after the snow line around jupiter the place where water becomes ice had shrank as a result europa was able to form with some ice already around it ice that would increase its surface area over the coming billions of years incidentally it's only comparatively recently that we started calling it europa at all back in 1610 galileo primarily used a numbering system for his four moons with europa being jupiter two but not being an idiot he publicly said they should be named after his patrons the medici family so for the next hundred years also they were known as the medician stars it was only much much later that people started being like should we really be naming these things after a bunch of rich dead dudes and well they switched to the mythological names that we know today honestly though it's maybe not surprising that it took so long while it was cool to know jupiter had moon's interest in them wasn't exactly huge not compared to people's fascination with mars or venus or any of the other planets oh it was only recently that we discovered how cool europa really was starting with mankind's very first visit now if you want the whole world to discover how cool your website is then you need to partner up with today's sponsor 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website can thrive email campaigns patronage portals social integrations member-only areas analytics commercial options 24 7 customer support really everything you could ever want is just in one place so when you're ready to get started on the next project of yours big or small if it involves a website it's got to be with squarespace right now you can go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch your new site go to squarespace.com geographics to save 10 of your first purchase of a website or a domain and let's get back to space [Music] it was march the 2nd 1972 when pioneer 10 blasted off from cape canaveral on a mission to the unknown by then the era of space exploration was well underway the mariner program along with its soviet counterpart had already conducted flybys of venus and mars and mercury was scheduled for the following year but pioneer 10 was radically different rather than poopling around our immediate neighborhood checking in on our planetary siblings its mission was to go further much further than any man-made object had ever been and part of that would involve conducting the first ever flyby of the biggest planet of all today pioneer 10 is famous for all the firsts that it achieved among them was taking the first ever photo of europa a blurry indistinct image that's amazing because of what it symbolizes rather than what you can actually see but for our story today it's the next generation of probes that really matters the voyager craft when pioneer 10 returned its indistinct images of jupiter's moons people were mostly like that's cool i guess but when the voyager two images came back across spring and summer of 1979 the science world collectively lost its sh that's because the photos revealed that europa had one of the smoothest surfaces in the solar system but one still marked by irregular ridges it was this photo that first made people realize what might lie beneath europa's crust a deep sea able to constantly replenish the surface ice and since water is one of the key ingredients for life as we know it well you can probably see why arthur c clarke was excited enough to include aquatic life forms on europa in his sequel novel to 2001 a space odyssey the voyager 2 data sparked a mad rush of interest in jupiter in general and europa in particular almost exactly a decade later the galileo probe blasted off for the gas giant arriving in orbit in 1995. although it was mostly intended to explore jupiter itself galileo's mission was extended twice specifically so that it could examine the ice moon in more detail the result was 20 odd flybys each returning a wealth of data it was from galileo that we got our most detailed images of europa's surface allowing us to see its broken ridges and long red lines indicating tidal activity it was also from this one probe that we discovered the way europa disrupts jupiter's magnetic field probably still the best evidence we have of a subsurface ocean as we entered the third millennium a.d europa was becoming hot news in planetary science circles its reputation constantly boosted by stuff like a hubble observation that suggested water plumes may eject from beneath the crust at this point you might be thinking something along the lines of hang on though are there other places in our solar system with water and you'd be right as we mentioned in our mars video recent discoveries have concluded that small briny lakes probably lie beneath the poles ganymede europa's cousin is thought to have a subsurface ocean as is saturn's moon titan heck even pluto shows signs that hint at a hidden underground sea and then there's enceladus a tiny moon of saturn enceladus isn't just suspected to have liquid water we've actually seen it great plumes of water vapor caught on camera by nasa ejecting high into the air so why then all this fast around europa why do planetary scientists get a stirring in their pants every time they think about this one jovian moon well let's find out as far as we're aware life needs three key ingredients to pop into existence the foremost of those as you're probably fed up of hearing by now is water go anywhere where there's water on earth and you'll almost certainly find some kind of organism but water's not the only thing you need remember mars had surface oceans for millions of years and were yet to find even the faintest traces of long dead microbes so what are the other ingredients well the second one is the right combination of chemical elements and it's here that europa suddenly starts to strut its stuff see most other subsurface oceans are thought to exist between two layers of ice a sort of salty filling in the planetary oreo but europa's not like that instead scientists believe the bottom of its impossibly deep ocean is made of rock that matters because minerals contain all sorts of chemical compounds conductive to life and if they've spent billions of years leaching out into the water parts of that ocean may now be a chemical soup primed to give rise to life the third thing needed is an energy source here on earth that energy source is the sun nice and simple but that wouldn't work on europa locked away beneath 15 kilometers of ice europa's ocean is a place of eternal blackness no solar energy is getting in there but the sun isn't the only possible source of energy remember back in the first chapter when we teased europa's elliptical orbit being a big deal because how it meant jupiter's gravity was constantly stretching and warping the moon well here's the part where we reveal why it's such a big deal that powerful flexing of europa's surface could easily lead to volcanic activity stuff like hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor and that would be legit exciting because we already know how heat from hydrothermal vents can act as a life-giving energy source on earth this life comes in the form of extremophiles hardy bacteria that can withstand the insane conditions it's this kind of life that scientists consider most likely to flourish on europa but europa has another secret weapon on its side time a 2021 study from charles university in prague concluded that undersea volcanic activity may have been present throughout nearly the whole of europa's existence that would mean the three key ingredients for life water chemicals and an energy source have been present in europa's ocean for billions of years that's longer than the time it took for life to evolve on earth once conditions became ripe that might mean it's not just microbial life that exists on europa but complex aquatic creatures and if we ever find them well that would change everything right now there's a lot of excitement about nasa hunting for traces of long extinct microbes on mars the trouble is that mars and earth are close enough to engage in something called rock swapping the planetary equivalent of sneezing germs all over your neighbor every so often asteroid impacts and bits of our two planets spinning off into space bits that can wind up falling onto the surface of the other since we know some bacteria can survive such treatment finding life on mars would be amazing but it wouldn't prove beyond all doubt that it had arisen separately it could be that whatever life evolved there began with earth coughing a load of bacteria onto its sibling by contrast there's zero chance that anything living in europa's ocean would have a common ancestor with life on earth jupiter's just too far away for rock swapping that would mean life twice evolved independently in our solar system a fact that would massively boost the chances that it also evolved elsewhere but before you get too excited by the idea of funky sea creatures on europa we need to sound a note of caution as nasa researcher and professional dream crusher melwani desjuani told reuters if a place is habitable it does not mean that it's actually inhabited still the odds that europa holds at least microbial life are great enough that nasa has imminent plans to return and the mission they have planned may just be the most exciting that we'll see for decades [Music] unless you live in texas's 7th congressional district there's a roughly 99 chance that you've never heard of former representative john culberson a libertarian-leaning republican culberson spent 17 years in washington from 2001 where he did a whole bunch of regular texas republican stuff but there was one thing he did that was very unlike other texas republicans a thing that ensured he will always be mentioned in videos like this one john culberson is the sole reason nasa is sending a probe to europa the tortured history of the europa mission begins way back in the late 1990s just as all that incredible data was coming back from the galileo probe with the odds of a subservice ocean increasing nasa commissioned a formal study completed just in time for the decadal survey a 10-year questionnaire sent out among experts the decadal survey is an attempt to figure out what science dudes think is vital for space agencies to focus on in 2003 the survey returned some unambiguous answers more missions to mars send a probe to pluto and exploring europa these results fired the starting gun on a decade of research and planning to get a probe to jupiter's ice moon by 2011 nasa was ready to sign off on an expensive flagship mission and then the 2013 decadal survey dropped like a big depressing bomb in the 10 years since 2003 planetary scientists had gone from being all like let's explore europa to yeah that boring ass place screw that let's go to mars baby the new survey results effectively killed the europa plan with only 25 percent of nasa's already mega budget itself only 0.5 percent of the federal budget earmarked for flagship missions the agency was forced instead but all of its funds into mars 2020. after all it couldn't afford to both honor the 2013 survey by placing perseverance on the red planet and also go to europa could it it's at this point that john culberson comes in as david brown recounts in his excellent book the mission culberson just happened to be a massive space nut a guy for whom the phrase sub-surface ocean was almost as soul-stirring as hearing the opening bars of texas are texas culberson also happened to sit on the appropriation subcommittee responsible for nasa's budget when word got out that europa's mission would be cancelled he did something drastic culberson wrote into the appropriations bill a clause that forced nasa to fly a probe to the ice moon as he liked to joke it became effectively illegal for the agency not to explore europa and that's why this video is ending not with the 2013 decadal survey killing all hope with nasa preparing for the mission of a lifetime known as the europa clipper nasa's probe will launch in 2024 finally reaching orbit around jupiter in 2030. there it will perform endless flybys of the ice moon examining its chemical composition looking for water plumes determining once and for all if there is an ocean there and what chances it has of supporting life nor will it be the only probe in town at the same time as the clippers doing its thing the european space agency's juice probe a really unconvincing anagram of jupiter icy moon's explorer will also be in the region examining not just europa it'll also goat ganymede and callisto however it's what comes next that could change science as we know it the europa clipper was originally meant to be followed by a europa lander one which would drill down to take eye samples that could be examined for biosignatures the markers of life unfortunately when john culberson lost reelection in 2018 europa lost its champion as of 2021 the lander project has no funding and is effectively on hold but it may not be dead with the 2023 decadal survey coming up this could be the best chance to reignite interest in this fascinating and complex moon this water world in our own backyard which may hold our best chance of finding alien microbial life were a europa lander to be returned as one of the survey's top priorities nasa would almost certainly reactivate the project just think a mere decade from now we could be exploring this remote icy world pushing planetary science to its limits and maybe answering one of the greatest questions of all of course none of this is certain while the europa clipper will definitely fly there's no guarantee the lander mission will be restarted it may slip into obscurity a dusty relic of hope remembered only by geographics fans and one former texas congressman and that would be a shame because as this video has hopefully shown europa is one of the most interesting places in our solar system a miracle of a world deserving our attention we can only hope that when we come back to make our sequel video in 15 years time it will not end with a cliffhanger but with a probe landing on europa ready to change history so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and as always thank you for watching [Music]

Channel: Geographics

Views: 383,263

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Id: 4mHopzitVwk

Length: 23min 4sec (1384 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 15 2021