What does the recent discovery of acid on Europa mean for the possibility of life there?
Sulfuric acid — a corrosive chemical found on Earth in car batteries — exists on the frozen surface of Europa. This demonstrates once again that this moon is a really bizarre place. Sulfuric acid occurs in nature, but it isn’t plentiful. You’re not likely to find sulfuric acid on Earth’s beaches, but on Europa, it covers large portions of the surface. The new findings come from the Near-Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (NIMS) aboard Galileo. NIMS works like a prism to break up infrared light not visible to the naked eye – scientists can study the resulting light patterns to determine what chemicals are present, since different chemicals absorb infrared light differently. At first researchers thought the spectrometer’s findings of sulfuric acid on Europa would quash any talk that life might exist there, after all, even though we know there are acid-loving bacteria on Earth, sulfuric acid is a nasty chemical. But although sulfur may seem like a harsh chemical, its presence on Europa doesn
