So a bunch of stories have come out just in the past 24 hours finally!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (If there were more options denoting emphasis than bolding, italics and underline, I'd add them too.) putting the spotlight on Europa as a destination for exploration. My God, we spend billions on a damnable dead planet in Mars - Europa sits tauntingly with an ocean containing more water, in liquid form, than exists on all of Earth. I despise a global situation which allows us to have multiple bodies containing liquid water easily within our reach (not lightyears distant) which we have totally and utterly ignored, and which no missions are planned within the next two decades or so.
Yes, Europa has miles of ice you've got to deal with before you get to those kissable Europan fish. There's hope that some of that water might get carried to the surface over millions of years, thus containing some frozen microbes. There's even wild speculation the red streaks on Europa's surface are from microorganisms. We're sending a probe, already on the way, to Jupiter. JUNO. It has no intention of investigating Europa specifically, it's primary mission solely on Jupiter.
And of course... This press won't amount to a Europa mission - but we absurdly focus on Europa, the most likely candidate for life, but the hardest of three liquid water bodies besides Earth to research. Enceladus? You don't even need to land to detect life, should it exist. That puppy unleashes jets of gaseous water into space, so all you need is an orbiter.
Then there's Titan. Titan could have liquid water based life from a subsurface ocean like Europa. Unlike Europa, it has recent cryvolcanos... Meaning that subsurface ocean has erupted on the surface, where samples lie, without any melting or digging. The possibility of radically different life subsisting on liquid methane, surface methane, where it rains down from clouds ala water on Earth? Bonus. Even if you didn't suspect Titan could have any life at all, which it very likely does, somewhere, Titan is the most fascinating body in our entire solar system. Insanely complex, incredibly similar to dynamics seen only on Earth (Climatological, atmospheric, etc.)
I will cry if we've yet to investigate just one of these bodies properly before I die... Yet I suspect it doubtful we will. Three different worlds where life may well exist - three different worlds, jn our solar system, where liquid water exists, which we stubbornly assert is a requirement for life... and we persist in tossing billions at Mars or the Moon. Even missions to asteroids, for sample returns, pale in comparison. Nothing should take precedent over our search for life within reasonable limits (Our solar system.) And yet seemingly everything but that is our priority. Missions to Venus, Mercury, comets and asteroids - returning to Europa's home, Jupiter, without a single instrument focusing on Europa. Insanity.
