The giant planet Jupiter has nearly 100 known moons, yet none have captured the interest and imagination of astronomers and space scientists quite like Europa, an ice-shrouded world that is thought to possess a vast ocean of liquid salt water. For decades, scientists have wondered whether that ocean could harbor the right conditions for life, placing Europa near the top of the list of solar system bodies to explore.
It’s not that bad, if the place has no life, maybe we can finally actually land something on it and go explorin’
And set up a refuelling plant. I’d feel a lot less bad about turning slush into propellant if we’re pretty certain there aren’t microbes in it.
I can’t wait until we do find some place which has some type of life not connected to us (I think the probability is high), and we get to fight out the Red/Green Mars arguments in Robinson’s Mars trilogy.