Sulfuric acid occurs in nature, but it isn't plentiful. You're not likely to find sulfuric acid on Earth's beaches, but on Europa, it covers large portions of the surface. The new findings from NASA's Galileo spacecraft are reported in the Oct. 1 issue of the journal Science. Carlson, the principal investigator for the near-infrared mapping spectrometer aboard Galileo, is the lead author of the paper. Although there is no evidence of life on Europa, pictures and other scientific information gathered by the Galileo spacecraft indicate a liquid ocean may lie beneath Europa's icy crust.
Water is one key ingredient essential for life.
At first, Carlson thought the spectrometer's findings of sulfuric acid on Europa would quash any talk that life might exist there. Those thoughts were quickly negated by a colleague, Dr. Kenneth Nealson, head of JPL's astrobiology unit, who was excited by the findings. In fact, to make energy, which is essential to life, you need fuel and something with which to burn it. Sulfur and sulfuric acid are known oxidants, or energy sources, for living things on Earth. Data gathered by the spectrometer during observations of Europa had shown a chemical that we couldn't identify.