Jupiter's Moon Europa Is Target for Possible NASA Lander

[heisenberg]

SAN FRANCISCO — NASA is considering dropping two robotic landers on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, a body that many scientists regard as the solar system's best bet for harboring life beyond Earth. Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., are developing a concept mission that could launch in 2020 and deliver the landers to Europa about six years later. The chief goal would be to investigate whether life could ever have existed on the huge moon, which likely hosts an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell.
"Europa, I think, is the premier place to go for extant life," said JPL's Kevin Hand, who laid out the mission's basics in a talk here Thursday (Dec. 8) at the annual winter meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "Europa really does give us this opportunity to look for living life in the ocean that is there today, and has been there for much of the history of the solar system."

http://news.yahoo.com/jupiters-moon-europa-target-possible-nasa-lander-212201869.html

 

[Stonelesscutter]

Europa is the best!

 

[Overmind One]

http://news.yahoo.com/jupiters-moon-europa-target-possible-nasa-lander-212201869.html

I believe 99.99% that complex life will be found on Europa. Not necessarily technological, but more than just microbes. I can just feel it. Everything about Europa points to life. If it were closer to the Sun, or if Jupiter had ignited and formed a star, Europa would be covered with oceans like Earth.