| Heh, I was thinking they more likely found Duke Nukem
Anyways, that cryobot is very interesting, and they might try it soon on Lake Vostok. If they find that life can exist there in Antarctica (its a good rehearsal too) despite being under miles of ice and cut off from the world and sunlight for many millenia, then it can certainly exist in Europa.
Europa is interesting cause:
a) The push-pull of Jupiters gravity creates internal oscillations which should theoretically heat the interior.
b) Jupiters magnetic field and the conductivity of Europa detected by Gallileo probe suggests that there's saltwater present
c) Until the last few decades, no one imagined that life could exist in the abyss of ocean with no light source. Instead, we found that life teemed around vents and other "non-organic" life sources. What really was rewritten was that energy need not come from the sun, but could come from the very minerals we don't think twice about as we walk on them and that animals could live off that.
And yes, the radiation would help. I remember reading about how most life on Earth can change form with very little changes in DNA. Having lots of radiation present can certainly "jump start" the necessary reactions for life to begin on Europa.
My only real wishes before I die is that we can explore Europa and find life or get images of extrasolar planets, since travelling anywhere seems out of the question at the rate we are going. |