How to Shock a Jovian Moon to Life Electric shock worked for Frankenstein, so why not Europa?
The frozen moon of Jupiter is thought to harbor a sea of water under its frozen shell, and biologists are keen to know whether life has ever gotten started in that possibly overprotected womb. The chief problem: Life needs energy, and sunlight (known to be a pretty good source of energy) rarely if ever eeks below the icy surface, most researchers assume. A new study suggests space rocks crashing into Europa could trigger electrical impulses that would alter the moon’s surface chemistry. Jerome Borucki and his colleagues at NASA’s Ames Research Center speculate that Europa’s colored ice, noted by the Galileo spacecraft, might result from organic molecules created by impact-induced electrical impulses passing through the icy surface. Perhaps, they suggest, organisms living under the shell might seep to the surface through cracks in the ice. Maybe, but for now there are no firm plans to go looking, at least not on the surface. The research is reported in the Journal of Geophysical Researc
