Are the outer planets' moons the best chance of finding life in this solar system?

Question

other than on planet earth! can't remember the names but one, europa, I think might have an ocean, but can an ocean be life supporting without an atmosphere?

Anyway there is another more interesting moon around another planet, saturn I imagine, can't remember the moons name that the cassini probe orbited that showed that it had a similar chemical make -up to earth billions of years ago, could this moon turn into a lush planet in a billion years time?

People are saying its too cold, but don't the planet gianst Jupiter and saturn provide heat sources?

Answer 1

Yea!
Europa is a moon of Jupiter that is covered by an icy ocean. It has a thin atmosphere but this isn't needed since an ocean is a kind of atmosphere. There is heat and energy available under the ice, we think because of the friction caused by the severe tides that come with orbiting such a massive planet. On Earth we see life living in the dark bottoms of the seas near themal vents and even in the ices of Antarctica. Thats why it is probably the most likely place outside of Earth to have recognizable, similar life.

Other moons of Jupiter, and the planet Mars have been hypothesized to be able to support basic life but it is far less likely to exist here.

On Titan, where the Cassini probe was sent, we don't really expect to see life like Earth's, but rather life in the making. It is rare to have a body with such a thick atmosphere. It is too cold for life that survives off of water, but, being around the tripple point of methane, it is thought that there should be building blocks for life, a kind of primordial ooze, forming on Titan that is more reliant on having that compound in all three forms (solid, liquid, gas). A tripple point is thought to be a huge step towards the formation of life.

One thing I haven't mentioned that we need is carbon. As far as we can imagine, life MUST be carbon based. "What about silicon?" Even silicon cannot match the versitility of carbon which can bind with other elements to form so many different compounds that something as complex as life is able to come from it.

Even in a billion years it is unlikely that Titan will be "lush" when compared to Earth... basic life takes a long time to form and the conditions on the planet are not as favorable. If Titan does see life, it is my personal belief that it will evolve into simple life up to something perhaps akin to bacteria and then quickly die out. It took a lot of lucky extinctions and changes for Earth to get where it is.

Answer 2

There are currently two moons in our solar system that seem the best candidates for harboring some form of life. Europa, one of the Gallielian moons of Jupiter, and Saturn's satellite Titan.

Europa seems to harbor a liquid ocean under it's many miles of surface ice. And because of the influence of Jupiters massive magnetosphere, it is possible that the waters are warm enough to support life. Likely it's not the same carbon-based forms of life Earth gives us, but no one ever said that carbon had to be the building block on other worlds. It's possible that life on Europa is based on nitrogen or sulfar, for instance.

Titan would be the better candidate if you're looking for carbon-based life. Cassini observations seem to indicate the presense of liquid seas and rivers, much like Europa. But where Jupiter's moon is frozen at the surface, Titan's rivers are liquid. And they are methane, which is CH4 (one carbon bonded to four hydrogen). So if carbon is present in amounts large enough to form entire seas and rivers, perhaps life could evolve there that is carbon-based. But again, it would not be the type of life we are accustomed to.

In both worlds, life would have to evolve to handle extremely frigid temperatures and in the case of Europa, intense pressure. But it isn't entirely beyond the point of possibility that it could give rise to an ecosystem, or may have already in the form of bacteria or small single-cell organisms already that we just haven't discovered. But I doubt that either will ever be described as "lush" in the remaining 4.5 billion years our sun has left.

Answer 3

Like other people above me said, Europa is a good candidate. If there is liquid water (and not slush, as some scientists think) under the ice then there could possibly be life, similar to the lifeforms that exist around deep sea vents at the bottom of our oceans (do a web search on extremophiles, neat stuff). It would be neat to go there and find out, but it would be difficult because a space craft would have to drill down through a mile or so of ice! Finding life on another world would help us understand how life evolved here on Earth, so it is definitely worth investigating!

Another moon around Saturn might also have liquid water under its ice - Cassini recently saw a guyser shooting up from the surface, so now we know there is liquid water under its surface. Way cool!
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2027

We don't expect to find any life on Titan, because there is no liquid water there. There appears to be liquid ethane/methane (I always forget which) on the surface, which is neat - that makes Titan the only other world besides Earth to have liquid on its surface. But life as we know it must have liquid water. (Of course, there are many things we don't know about life...) Titan, with its thick atmosphere, appears to be kinda like early Earth but in deep freeze.

Answer 4

Europa is the one you're thinking of -- it appears to have an ice-covered ocean. Life in its simplest form doesn't need an atmosphere -- many bacteria here on earth actively avoid it, because oxygen is poisonous to them. Many of these outer moons are heated by tidal forces from the parent planet, so if they have liquid water they will probably have at least bacterial life, and possibly more complex things as well. There are lots of large animals living in hydrothermal vents deep on our ocean floors, and something similar could evolve elsewhere.

Answer 5

Right now it seems that way. Europa is a strong candidate only because water is theorized to be present, and if so, it may harbor life much in the way that life can flourish in extreme areas on Earth. Titan is an example of what scientists theorize the proto-Earth was like. And there is another Saturnian moon, Enceladus, that has some potential too.

Answer 6

This is more aimed at your Additional Details than toward your original question, as very good answers have already been given. Jupiter and Saturn both give off more heat than they receive from the sun itself, so no it isn't too cold for those moons to support life.

Answer 7

As for the opportunity of any sort of life everywhere, it would *seem* to be very almost inevitable. yet people who say it is for specific, are overstating the case. We would desire to enable for the possibility, no remember how reasonable, that our planet would be unique. There would desire to nevertheless be a pair of locations in our image voltaic device the place trouble-free, microbial life would exist, however the probabilities of sensible life is largely nil. The galaxy and of path, the Universe grant an limitless sort of opportunities for sensible life, notwithstanding it must be so uncommon that it must be 1000's of years before we ever come across it. If this form of discovery is ever made, it relatively is going to very almost unquestionably be with the aid of detecting some sort of EM transmission, in all probability radio, from yet another famous individual device.

Answer 8

One mo, i will just jump in my time machine.

Seriously though, these planets are too far from the sun for life.

For life as we can imagine, the planet has to be a certain distance from the sun. The band (from the sun) for life is very narrow.

If life were to exist on these outer planets, they would need heat generated from that planet, and even then, that life would be very primitave. It will be interesting to hear what others have to say though because i know very little on the subject.

Answer 9

The moons on the outer planets are much too cold to support life as we know it. A billion years from now? You may have to ask Stephen Hawking. I haven't a clue.

Answer 10

There was life on our moon once. They landed on it, said some famous words, leaped about a bit, planted a flag, picked up some dust, and flew off again forgetting the flag!

As for life on other moons I'm doubtful.