POSSIBLE HISTORICAL OR ACTUAL LIVE ON JUPITER MOON EUROPA ???

The surface of Europa consists of ice (water and otherelements) and is in permanent motion caused by the tidal forcesof Jupiter and its other moons Io, Ganymed and Callisto andpossible vulcanism. (see pictures above)
Scientists say by looking onto the new pictures of Europa (takenby the spacecraft Galileo) that liquid water under the ice shieldmay have existed or still exists.
Liquid water is the main factor for life. So if there was (or is)liquid water, why couldn't there existed a very, very simple lifeform (as simple as one-cells e.g. bacteria).

A major evidencethat liquid waterexisted on Europa may be seen on this pictures. 

As you see this flat area in the middle must be younger that the sorounding area. A evidence for flooding with water is that the former line structure within the flat area is slightly visible. One may say that the impact heat of the meteorite (crater in the center of the flat area) caused melting, but the size of the crater is too small to cause such heat. So centuries ago liquid water came up from beneath the icy surface (caused by tectonical movement ?) and flooded the area.

Possible water outlets could be these two knobs. Perhaps the meteorite impact caused a major disturbance in the ice surface, which caused two openings in the shield down to the liquid underground. The crater rim was too high to flood the crater. Or tectonical movement cause the water outlets and the impact happend later.

Another evidence for liquid water is the crater PWYLL. Normally craters surface within the rim are deeper than the sorounding area. But Pwylls inner part is at the same altitude as the sorounding, so liquid water must have filled the crater. Another mystery is that the central mountain is higher that the rim. (blue areas are lowest ; red areas are the highest)

Live within ice

As you look to Greenland: Therelive many so called Bärentierchen(a 2 eyed 6 leged animal) frozen in the water ice. They are ableto pump out the water out of their cells and so they are able tosurvive temperatures down near to the absolute zero point (-273.15 C ; 0 K ) and begin to live again within 15 minutes inliquid water. Furthermore their food consists only of very smallplant parts (cells) and other organic stuff which is blown awayby wind on Earth.
Artemia brine shrimp are survivalartists too. Their eggs can survive up to more that 500 yearswithout contact with water and survive extreme cold, heat andacid liquids. But to hatch they need a warm, wet environment.
Austrianscientists found bacteriawithin the ice of lakes in the Alps near Innsbruck/ Austria, which live below the freezing point without anyproblems.
In Canada scientists found bacteria which live without any sunlight within rocks and their food is only frozen water and the mineralsof the rock.

How could they looklike ?

In Antarctica russianscientists found exotic shaped lifeforms at the location Wostok.They drilled about 2600 meters deep into the permanent ice andanalysed CO2, CH4, Deuterium and dust consistence. Then theyfound them in ancient Antarctic ice from as deep as 1,249 metersbeneath Vostok Station. The possibility that a lake beneath theice is very high. In the near future they will go down to thelake and analyse it.
They have also found a number of large cyanobacteria withnanobacteria (shown below) attached. 

Images: NASA/MarshallSpace Flight Center.
Image descriptions:
The bar down left shows the scale in micro meters ( um ).
Left: Sphere ; 6 um ... middle: Colony ; 0.8 um ... right: 5 um

The life forms in the middle picture arejust the same size like that bacteria found in the martianmeteorite ALH84001.
If they survive or LIVE within ice we have to observe comets too.Comets consist mostly of water ice.

" We've found some reallybizarre things - things that we've never seen before," saidRichard Hoover of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

More information and full size pictures:NASA / SCIENCE REPORT
The extended GALILEO EUROPA MISSION is still going on and will bring new featuressoon.

Pictures(C) NASA

(C)Captain 1998