Acidic Europa?

[PhantomWolf]

With a few threads on Europa and the possiblity of life I wasn't sure where to put this and so just started a new thread.

This article (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994664) indicates that life might actually be hard pressed to have made it on Europa if it is correct in its analysis.



Far from being a haven of ice and water and an ideal spot for the search for alien life, Jupiter's moon Europa may be a corrosive hotbed of acid and peroxide. That is the conclusion of researchers who met last week to prepare for NASA's proposed Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, an ambitious mission to study Jupiter's moons.

[Spacedog]

ok, i'm not gonna punch in too profoundly here,
except to say that i am in favor of life being on Europa
JIMO is a really cool name for a space probe
oh, and
the more extreme the conditions, the better
someday, volcanic sulphur jellyfish
they're gonna save us all
:P

Jupiter has 4 moons
the rest are parasites
8)

[tusenfem]

Well, at least we know that there is no pure water, but there are salts and everything in it, otherwise we could not have measured the inductive magnetic field around Europa. That is one thing.
Next to that I have thoroughly investigated the surroundings of Europa and found that there was a lot of SO2 (as one would expect, with Io shooting out a tonn per second of this stuff). Next to that, to our surprise we found a significant signature of chlorine (Cl+ and Cl-). When that all bombards the surface of Europa and gets implanted and transported inward, which we can assue happens, we can have sulfuric and chloric acid in the ocean under the icy layer. (published in Journal of Geophyiscal Research)
Naturally how concentrated it is, is anyone's guess.