What If We Found Life on Jupiter's Moon Europa?

[Music] Europa the icy moon of Jupiter a frigid world that would turn you into an astronaut popsicle and an atmosphere that would take your breath away literally because europ is at atmosphere is so thin it's almost non-existent and while it's mostly made up of oxygen this oxygen isn't breathable for you you just wouldn't be able to inhale it in this extremely low pressure environment and this Frozen world has a dark secret deep under its thick crust of ice it might just hide life that's why we're sending a member of our team on on a mission

to explore Europa and find out if anything can survive in this unforgiving environment Chase we need you on this one-way trip to Jupiter's neighborhood Mission Control this is Chase orbiting Europa and ready for landing did you know it would actually take you like 6 years to get here from Earth but luckily I'm already here and I love finding new alien buddies when they're not trying to kill me all right Chase initiate the landing sequence already on it Rico start the landing sequence I totally forgot Landing sequence [Music] initiated 500 M and descending 400 m 100

touchdown all that's right as Sprite oh my eyeballs that's strange Europa is five times farther from the Sun than Earth and gets much less sunlight than we do it must be so bright because of europa's icy surface all that ice is highly reflective that plus an almost absent atmosphere could make the light feel very harsh so just use the protective tint advisor and your eyes will be fine Chase what's your status yeah I'd say Europa is pretty similar to Earth if Earth had no atmosphere was covered in ice and had absolutely no interesting oceans to

see so in short it sucks what if guy I'm freezing out here yeah you'd need an advanced thermal insulation layer in your suit to keep you warm the surface temperature on Europa is about -45° C and it can get as cold as - 220° c it's also bathed in radiation that's because you're Europa orbits so close to Jupiter and Jupiter has a massive magnetic field that traps a lot of high energy particles inside it your space suit would need to be able to withstand that too great Europa is one of the four largest moons of

Jupiter it's still slightly smaller than our moon but it's a lot more exciting mainly because it has the potential to host life looks pretty lifeless if you ask me well it is on the surface look life needs three ingredients to exist on any world the first one is liquid water well Europa has plenty of that NASA's Galileo spacecraft which spent 8 years orbiting Jupiter gathered some data on Europa too and that data LED scientists to believe that this moon has twice as much water as all of Earth's oceans well I regret to report that your

scientist data is wrong I don't see no water only ice this mission is a waste of my precious time no no no it isn't you don't see them because these enormous oceans aren't on the surface they're deep below europa's thick icy crust that brings us to another ingredient for Life Energy on Earth life mostly gets energy from the Sun but that's not the case on Europa first of all because Europa is so far away from the Sun and second L because if there is life on Europa it's likely we'd find it under the ice where

there's no sunlight at all Europa gets its energy from the effects of tidal Heating and it has Jupiter to thank for that yeah the enormous gravity of the Solar System's biggest planet is constantly pulling on Europa bulging and cracking its ice this causes friction and the friction Heats this moon from the inside that's why europa's subsurface ocean doesn't freeze over like the rest of this frigid World Europa might also have hydrothermal vents on its ocean floor just like Earth does these vents spew out heat energy and chemicals potentially creating a habitable environment around them the

last ingredient for life is chemical elements most living things are made up of stuff like carbon hydrogen nitrogen ox oxygen phosphorus and sulfur and based on the data we collected about Europa this Moon's got all that but of course no one has ever been on Europa to confirm this until now uh and and what that yeah those are europa's famous cryo volcanoes these volcanoes don't erupt with lava but with water and ice ice volcanoes that's sick oh my God okay okay so how do you suggest I find life here this ice looks thick yeah you'd

have to drill through it and you'd need special equipment like a high performance drill designed for extreme cold electrically powered by a portable nuclear generator lightweight with a heating mechanism and a sample retrieval system right great so just like the everyday stuff that you would just happen to carry around with you on your spaceship no I'm serious I haven't have that on my spaceship I have the best drill in Universe I'm so excited to meet Who's down here oh hold on the chances of seeing any kind of life with your own eyes are slim because

that life if it exists is likely microscopic but if you get a sample of that salty water well you can examine it and maybe find traces of microorganisms that's not how I picture this Mission but well since we're here let's do [Music] this while you can't improve the odds of seeing aliens on Europa you can increase the opportunity of seeing more of Chase's Epic Adventures on what if we've already traveled with them to Titan Venus even Uranus and there's so much more we want to show you that's why we launched our what if Explorers Club

on patreon that's where we give you the top secret behind the scenes extended director Cuts mind-blowing art epic merch discounts and Our Endless Love and gratitude report us on patreon to get exclusive content and help us send Chase to his death over and over and over again hey I don't feel so good I think it might puke your body temperature is rising you're experiencing the symptoms of radiation poisoning I did warn you that radiation levels on Europa are high even in your space suit you'd still feel headaches nausea dizziness all the fun that comes from

radiation sickness and all that after spending only a few hours on this Moon if you don't return to your shielded spacecraft immediately this exposure will kill you huh oh no no I'm might fine now I'm good Rico you I just need to lie down for 5 minutes just that's a bad idea you need to return the samples to the spaceship right the samples I have to get the samp supp [Music] this this is still so sick though the impact force from the cryo volcano has damaged your space suit you're losing oxygen I should have subscribe

to the top tier of what have patreon in the extreme conditions of Europa without the full protection of a suit you'd only have a few minutes to get to Safety in just 1 minute severe frostbite would damage your Exposed Skin after 2 minutes you'd start shivering Q hypothermia another 10 minutes later and you'd lose Consciousness and freeze to death oh wait scratch all that looks like Chase's suit lost loost all the oxygen and he just suffocated now we'll never know if those samples had any life in them yeah we'll have to try this search for

life again maybe next time Chase can set up a base first before going out there and exploring things but that's a story for another what [Music] if [Music]