Europa, one of Jupiter’s four largest moons, has an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. In the coming years, scientists hope to send probes to the world to study the chemistry of its ocean and look for possible signs of alien life. One challenge is figuring out whether radiation hitting Europa would tamper with potential chemical evidence of life.
Luckily, it seems scientists won’t have to worry too much about this. Jupiter’s presence shields Europa from many of the energetic particles that stream through space, researchers found using a computer model. Though some of these particles, called cosmic rays, will hit Europa, the radiation dosage from them is not significant, the researchers report in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. This means that chemicals in Europa’s ocean, and signs of life they might contain, would be intact for future study.
In 2018, planetary scientist Tom Nordheim of NASA’s Jet Propulsion ...
