If life can be found elsewhere in our solar system, astrobiologists believe that it is probably easy (microbial) in nature. While most of our astrobiology efforts are currently concentrating on Mars, several missions will be sent to the outer solar system in the coming years to search for possible signs of life in Jupiter's icy moon of Europe. Scientists have theorized for decades that life under the surface of the moon could be around hydrothermal ventilation slots at the nuclear border. The search for possible evidence for this life is the purpose of Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (juice) and the Europa Clipper Mission of NASA, which are currently on the way to the Jupiter system.
Based on fossilized bacteria that can be found in the area of deep -sea readers, it is assumed that hydrothermal activity played a key role in life about 4 billion years ago. NASA recently awarded James Holden, a microbiological researcher at the School of Earth and sustainability at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 621,000 US dollars. According to the award, Holden will carry out a three -year study via microbes that are located around volcanic fissures on the sea floor. The aim of this study is intended to help scientists predict what microbial life in Europe could look like in the expectation of missions such as juice and the Europe clipper.
Scientists received their first indications of a possible liquid ocean under Europe's icy exterior when the probes of Voyager 1 and 2 in 1979 drove through the system. Since then, observations from several robot missions and the Hubble world space telescope have confirmed the presence of Plume activity on the surface of the moon. Similar to Saturn's moon -enceladus and other “octuels” in the solar system, these springs are the result of “cryovolanism”, a geological process in which fleeting (such as water, methane and ammonia) broke out of the surface of a body as a melted rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5fswg9ndty
Holden has been studying deep -sea evacks since 1988. With the support of the NASA, he founded a laboratory that simulates the light and oxygenless conditions that are typical of deep sea. Here, extremophiles can get the energy and nutrients they need from the hot gases and minerals that flow out of these ventilation slots. As Holden explained in a press release from Umass Amherst:
In order to remove our microbes from you, we use submarines from people who are occupied by humans, sometimes robotic-to dive a mile under the surface and bring the samples ashore and back to my laboratory at umass at umass. Since the conditions in Europe could resemble the conditions from which these microbes come, we think that if it exists European life, something like our own hydrothermal microbes should look like.
However, due to the different chemistry, size and gravity of the moon, the inner sea in Europe will differ in many ways from the earth (approximately 13.5% of the earth). This essentially means that life within Europe will have some things together with extremophilic people here on Earth, but will not be exactly the same. On earth, the type of extremophilic ones, the holds and other microbiologists examine, break off hydrogen in order to obtain their energy using special enzymes called hydrogenous lases. These enzymes are available in many types that work in different ways and possibly have different functions in different types of cells. As a result, organisms that are dependent on various quantities of hydrogenous lases may not be similar to each other or work in the same way.
It is also known that iron, sulfur and carbon, which are released by the hydrothermal ventilation slots on earth, are bound with hydrogen to produce energy. However, scientists are not sure how these processes work organically because the amounts of hydrogen involved vary.
For a long time we had a fundamental interest in knowing whether there is a life beyond our planet and how this life would work. It is exciting to believe that the answer to the secret could be on our own planet. So we have to find out the different chemical processes that could use European microbial lifespan to create energy. Different chemics could create very different types of microbes. Our research will determine how the various chemical processes contribute to the physiology of an organism.
Further reading: University of Massachusetts Amherst
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