Excerpt from yibada.com
With a US$18.5 billion budget
allocation in 2016 proposed by President Barack Obama in hand, NASA can
finally launch the dream project it’s been working on for the last 15
years.
The allocation provides US$30 million to launch a mission to Europa, the Jovian moon scientists
are convinced is the most probable location for extraterrestrial life
in the solar system. Life on Europa, a water world covered in a thick
blanket of ice, will most likely be lower forms such as bacteria and perhaps, algae.
But it will be life and the discovery of life on Europa will prove life as we know it is possible on exoplanets in other galaxies. The satellite aimed at Europa could launch as early as 2022.
“We used to think that in order for a world to be habitable, it had to be just at the right distance from the sun, or whatever your star was,” said Dr. Kevin Hand, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to CS Monitor.
Hand said Europa
is a “real game changer” since it is very far out from the sun but
still has liquid-water ocean as it is orbiting Jupiter and “the tidal
tug and pull causes Europa to flex up and down, and all that tidal
energy turns into mechanical energy.”
NASA said the 2016 budget supports the formulation and development of
the Europa Mission and will enable it to begin Phase A of this project,
according to PC Magazine…
Source Article from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AscensionEarth2012/~3/u7zpbB2aCKg/nasa-to-speed-up-search-for-alien-life.html
NASA To Speed Up Search For Alien Life On Europa
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