Meet Europa: one of Jupiter’s moons discovered by Galileo in January 1610. So far, our Nasa friends have hypothesized that the outer surface is made up of an ocean of liquid water that’s covered by ice. But, now the scientists are saying that there’s a strong evidence of warm water beneath the ice, causing the outer layer of ice to melt and break up (much like the Antarctica here).
Cool, so Europa may have warm water, what does that mean?
It’s a bigger discovery than you probably think, as it may tell us about life on Europa. Any liquid water on another planet presents the possibility of life on it. Scientists have thought for a while that a giant ocean is below Europa’s surface, so this helps “solidify” their original thoughts (get it, “solidify”! Because the ice is melting! Anyways…).
Space experts in North America and Europe are currently working on missions to get to Europa and other moons of Jupiter to try and find out more information. The mission is hopefully going to be launched by the latest of 2020.
In the meantime yes, lets just hope that this “life” is more like Marvin the Martian and less like the aliens from BATTLE: LOS ANGELES.