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Space NASA

Extreme Shrimp May Hold Clues To Alien Life On Europa 75

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-life-jim-but-not-as-we-know-it dept.
HughPickens.com writes: Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are studying a mysterious ecosystem at one of the world's deepest undersea hydrothermal vents to get clues about what life could be like on other planetary bodies, such as Jupiter's icy moon Europa, which has a subsurface ocean. At the vents, tiny shrimp are piled on top of each other, layer upon layer, crawling on rock chimneys that spew hot water. "You go along the ocean bottom and there's nothing, effectively," says Max Coleman. "And then suddenly we get these hydrothermal vents and a massive ecosystem. It's just literally teeming with life." Bacteria, inside the shrimps' mouths and in specially evolved gill covers, produce organic matter that feed the crustaceans. The particular bacteria in the vents are able to survive in extreme environments because of chemosynthesis, a process that works in the absence of sunlight and involves organisms getting energy from chemical reactions. In this case, the bacteria use hydrogen sulfide, a chemical abundant at the vents, to make organic matter. The temperatures at the vents can climb up to a scorching 842 degrees Fahrenheit (450 degrees Celsius), but waters just an inch away are cool enough to support the shrimp. The shrimp are blind, but have thermal receptors in the backs of their heads.

According to the exobiologists, these mysterious shrimps and its symbiotic bacterium may hold clues "about what life could be like on other planetary bodies." It's life that may be similar—at the basic level—to what could be lurking in the oceans of Europa, deep under the icy crust of the Jupiter moon. According to Emma Versteegh "whether an animal like this could exist on Europa heavily depends on the actual amount of energy that's released there, through hydrothermal vents." Nobody is seriously planning a landing mission on Europa yet. But the European Space Agency aims to launch its JUpiter ICy moons Explorer mission (JUICE) to make the first thickness measurements of Europa's icy crust starting in 2030 and NASA also has begun planning a Europa Clipper mission that would study the icy moon while doing flybys in a Jupiter orbit.
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Extreme Shrimp May Hold Clues To Alien Life On Europa More

Extreme Shrimp May Hold Clues To Alien Life On Europa

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  • In Reverse (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 )
    I find it much more probable that life begins in milder, friendlier conditions and then adapts over time to harsher environments. Of course, everything is relative.

    • I find it much more probable that life begins in milder, friendlier conditions and then adapts over time to harsher environments. Of course, everything is relative.

      Ah, but mild and friendly is a relative term. I'm not sure our frame of reference is a valid example of mild and friendly...

      • I think the point of his last sentence was making the point more elegantly than what you parroted back at him.

        But anyways, I will laugh when we do punch through the ice on Europa and the probe finds itself in a jelly-like biofilm that harvests energy from whatever tectonics or tidal energy is imparted by Jupiter. Or something else so (rightfully) alien that there are no good biological analogs on Earth.

    • It does seem more "intuitive", however, scientific research continually reveals findings that run contrary to our intuition; we don't actually know enough about the mechanisms for the genesis of life to actually say one way or the other if this is true. What you have is a hypothesis - one that needs more research - this is actually an interesting area of active research. Perhaps "harsh" environments are exactly what's needed to create sufficient 'chemical turmoil' and the driving selection mechanisms.

      I act

      • There was an episode of The Outer Limits called "Trial by Fire" that dealt with water faring aliens visiting earth.

      • This is something trying to build a hypothesis on a theory that has no evidence at all. Sure, I find it as interesting as most people in terms of discussing possibilities, but this is dreaming and not "science". Anyone discussing life off of our own Earth needs lots of research.. like namely finding life so we could possibly begin to formulate a hypothesis on it's origin.

        I actually suspect that the majority of life - and intelligent life - in the universe is probably ocean-based. If ever space aliens visit us, unlike the movies, I suspect their spaceships may be more likely to be like sealed aquariums than an air-breathing setup. I've never seen this idea reflected in science fiction though.

        Look, I am honestly not trying to be a Debbie Downer on you, but you are attempting to critique someone's imagination with your own imag

      • The Killing Star [wikipedia.org], one of my favorite sf books of the past twenty years, explores this idea among many others. The book also presents a very interesting hypothesis that resolves the Fermi Paradox.

        • The book also presents a very interesting hypothesis that resolves the Fermi Paradox.

          A hypothesis that falls apart when you start wondering how beings who embrace such logic ever built a society to begin with, and then avoided wiping each other out with nuclear weapons. Also, I can't help but think what happens if any set of species forms an alliance or even casual contact - attacking any warns all the others. So while we can't rule out a psychotic species causing havoc, it would be a weird aberration at w

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        I actually suspect that the majority of life - and intelligent life - in the universe is probably ocean-based. If ever space aliens visit us, unlike the movies, I suspect their spaceships may be more likely to be like sealed aquariums than an air-breathing setup. I've never seen this idea reflected in science fiction though.

        In the later books of the Lost Fleet series, they come across an alien race that is aquatic, with ships that are much more maneuverable than human ships. They theorized that the ships were in fact filled with water which allowed them to make more radical movements.

        • The basis of technology is fire. Without that you can't even start smelting metals.

          How would you, as a shaggy dolphin with a bone though your nose, make a fire underwater?

          • Thank you. Venturing into space starts with flying through the gaseous atmosphere. Which starts with standing at the bottom of that atmosphere, staring up at the stars, and wishing you could fly. You can't even see stars from underwater.

            I might be imagination challenged, but I just don't see a progressive species with opposable thumbs and language developing underwater.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        I believe it was Arthur Clarke who I heard speculate that we may have already encountered other sentient life and just not recognized it. If something lived so slowly that it took decades or years to form a coherent thought we would never have the patience to talk to it (even if we could figure out how). If something lived so quickly that it was here and gone in a day it wouldn't have the patience to talk to us. For some long-lived species a trip between stars that lasted a thousand years, to us essentia

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by pr0nbot ( 313417 )

      Surely "mild" and "harsh" are subjective? From the point of view of a molecule, what constitutes "harsh"?

      Perhaps evolving life in high temperatures turns out to be easier than at room temperature, e.g. because there's more free energy around.

      • I'm not a biologist, but it seems to me that life is more keen to utilize energy through more complicated but well defined pathways rather than through unpredictable thermal excitations, much like your car prefers a piston engine and a gearbox to Orion-style detonations.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by itzly ( 3699663 )
          The earliest life forms probably didn't have complicated pathways.
        • Deep sea vents were discovered when I was in my 20's before that we used to think abiogenesis had something to do with lightning hitting a mud puddle. The evidence [youtube.com] that life formed around such vets on Earth is strong but inconclusive. Fatty acids from clay in the vent spontaneously form primitive cell membranes (in vents and mud puddles). Sulphur provides chemical energy, porous rock around the vent provides a sponge like scaffold for life to take root and extract passing nutrients. Most importantly the ven

          • If that really is how life got started then it's likely that primitive cells are still being spontaneously created near these vents today

            Modern conditions are very considerably different to those in which life developed on earth.

            For a start, there is oxygen. Now, it may be true that oxygen is essential for large organisms to develop (we only have a sample of one ecosystem, in which oxygen is almost ubiquitously associated with large organisms ; but that's an "almost ubiquitously", not an "always" ; the cas

          • Deep sea vents were discovered when I was in my 20's before that we used to think abiogenesis had something to do with lightning hitting a mud puddle. The evidence [youtube.com] that life formed around such vets on Earth is strong but inconclusive. Fatty acids from clay in the vent spontaneously form primitive cell membranes (in vents and mud puddles). Sulphur provides chemical energy, porous rock around the vent provides a sponge like scaffold for life to take root and extract passing nutrients. Most importantly the vents are predictable, the deep, still water stabilizes the temperature gradient. Convection currents cycle the fatty cells through the gradient allowing different chemical reactions within the membrane to synchronize themselves to the thermal cycle (much the same as plants match the cycle of night and day). If that really is how life got started then it's likely that primitive cells are still being spontaneously created near these vents today, the practical problem for scientists researching this idea is finding them before evolved life such as shrimp eat them..

            Yeah, all this makes sense, but all you're describing is really what I meant with those "more predictable pathways". It's not like the life forms living around those vents are just bathing in the heat and having it fuel various endothermic reactions, which is what I understood by the mention of "more free energy around [in high-temperature environment]". Surely this can help some things, but it can be as easily destructive as it can be constructive. Heating a soup of chemicals can eventually give you a lot

        • I'm not a biologist, but it seems to me that life is more keen to utilize energy through more complicated but well defined pathways rather than through unpredictable thermal excitations, much like your car prefers a piston engine and a gearbox to Orion-style detonations.

          There is a level of coolness attributed to a car that does Orion-style detonations. Mind you, you wouldn't survive but still.

      • For organic molecules, I'd say anything sufficient to inhibit their interactions or congeal them would be harsh.

    • In Reverse

      In reverse of what? I didn't see anything in any of the articles or the summary about life starting out in these harsh environments.

      That might have been the case on Earth, but there may not be any less harsh environments on Europa.

    • In this case I would say it was pretty sure that's what happened, but only because it was already alone.

      I would expect life would flourish where the exploitable energy exists, and be more diverse where there is more of it.

    • I'm with you. I'll bet a dollar that there are no hydrothermal shrimp on Europa; our freak shrimp are descended from regular shrimp who got away from hungry fish, and if there is so much as bacteria on Europa, I'll be shocked.

      But we do have here, in these little blind shrimp, a candidate species with which to seed Europa's ocean. I assume they taste as good as regular shrimp.

      As long as we don't mind them arriving in stores freeze dried and already irradiated ...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Optali ( 809880 )

      We still don't know how abiogenesis works and our current environment could perfectly be such a "harsher environment".

  • Extremely large Shrimp...I hope Europa has a drive up window...I hate getting out of my spaceship I also hate the idea of being the meal for an extremely LARGE Shrimp.

  • Must resist temptation to make fission chips joke.

  • No Microscopes on Mars (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When the recent 'landers' reached Mars, suspicion turned to the lack of microscopes amongst the range of 'life detecting' systems carried by the devices. NASA at first panicked, and then realised they could describe the macro-cameras used to study geological specimens as 'microscopes', and that the betas would be dumb enough to buy this explanation.

    Humanity is run by the big organised churches- in the West the Judaic churches of Islam, Modern Christianity (nothing to do with the original Christianity of the

  • Well, we know where the dophins are heading.

  • "Extreme Shrimp" is going to be my next band name.

  • I saw Extreme Shrimp back in the '80s. Opened for Blondie and Television at CBGB. Neo-punk band, ahead of their day. Great times, those.

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