Europa

March 3, 2054

It's time to get to work. Lee set up the first of the rovers this morning, sending it on its way towards the first of the three sites we hope to drill into on our quest to find life. Its first job will be to identify if the region is actually anything like the region thought it was like when we selected it. As I have already mentioned, I've been researching this moon for years and it honestly looks much different than I imagined it. That way, if there is something off about the region that we did not detect when we were doing research using spectroscopy, we could focus our resources on the other two.

Once the rovers send data back on the site so I can evaluate them for any positive or concerning signs relating to life the rover will then try to analyze the areas of the site that have material left by water vapor plumes. These plumes can give hints to what chemicals are present in the oceans below them.

The site of this mission was chosen specifically to evaluate the areas nearby these plumes, as the presence of plumes bodes well for the odds of life being present. They can also be extremely dangerous, which is why this mission was significantly designed to keep the spaceship a safe distance away from these plumes while making sure they were accessible for study.

The reason the plumes are so promising is that they point out a couple essential signs for life are present. The first is that there is a source of energy. Europa, while bright and beautiful, is an incredibly cold place with little to no atmosphere to absorb any energy. Many of its glowing properties came more from Jupiter's radiation and not thermal energy. Without energy there is no life. While that energy might look different in alien life, that does not change the fact that energy is needed to sustain chemical reactions. On Earth that energy comes from the Sun. The Sun's impact on Europe is far too weak to sustain life, at least as we know it, however these plumes are a sign of a different type of energy.

The gravitational force of Jupiter is brutally powerful. In fact, it's two and a half times more powerful than that of Earth's, resulting in an aggressive push and pull between Europa and Juputer, which leaves the core of Europa to be incredibly active. This activity leads to underwater volcanic activity which can theoretically support life providing the stable energy needed. The times are caused by highly active volcanic areas, so that made them incredibly essential for the search.

The other key part of the puzzle that the names provided was a method to analyze the chemicals present in the water to look for other key building blocks such as oxygen or carbon, or elements that are considered dangerous to life.

Once that is determined, if the signs were positive the next step was to make a drill site and get a submarine down into the water. The submarine's task would be to hopefully discover life or determine how stable the conditions under the water were in that area.

One of the key components to life that can be looked over is consistency. In order to sustain itself life needs stable consistent conditions. It is one of the features of Earth that has allowed life to thrive for billions of years.

The reason Europa has been considered such a promising candidate for life by scientist such as me is the fact that it likely formed early in our solar system's life and has not gone through much change since. The thick icy crust acts as a protective layer around its oceans. The oceans of Europa are also twice as large as the oceans of Earth and considering that we haven't even explored all of Earth's Ocean that means there's a lot to explore If the conditions in the oceans are right then life in Europa's oceans could have had as much time to develop as it has on Earth.

To say I am excited to see the early samples from those plumes is an understatement. I'm also terrified. If the building blocks for life are not present in the oceans of Europa or if the oceans are not saltwater oceans as we'd predicted this entire expedition may have been for nothing. I would hate to have to let everyone down.