NASA ANNOUNCES MAJOR PRESS CONFERENCE ABOUT ITS SEARCH FOR LIFE BEYOND EARTH

EUROPA OCEAN WORLD  
Space enthusiasts from all over the world have been left giddy with excitement after NASA has issued another cryptic message announcing a press conference this Thursday that will reveal new discoveries about ‘water worlds’ within this solar system.

While the press release didn’t give much away about the content of the planned press conference, it did make reference to ‘future ocean world exploration’ which is said to include NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper mission which will launch in the 2020s and will focus on ‘the broader search for life beyond Earth.’ The discoveries that will inform this press release are believed to come from data derived from the Hubble Space Telescope and the extraordinarily successful Cassini mission which has been examining Saturn and its numerous satellites for the past thirteen years. The wording of the press release suggests that NASA will not announce that they have actually discovered life beyond this planet as of yet. However, the specific and direct reference to Jupiter’s Europa moon seems to indicate that the space agency believes that it is very likely that the icy moon is hosting extra-terrestrial life.

Europa is one of Jupiter’s sixty-seven moons.and has long been believed to be one of the best candidates in this solar system capable of supporting extra-terrestrial life. Europa is a relatively small moon, a little smaller than Earth’s moon, with a thick layer of ice covering the surface and a huge liquid ocean. It is estimated that Europa’s ocean is almost ten times deeper than the oceans on planet Earth and that the reasonably small moon might hold as much as two to three more times the volume of liquid water than this planet. The presence of water is deemed to be one of the most important elements when it comes to establishing the existence of life. The new information about Europa will certainly enthrall space enthusiasts, especially if it involves moving closer to establishing the existence of life outside of planet Earth. The announcement will be made to the public at 2pm ET (6pm UTC) Thursday 13 April 2017, and you can watch the whole thing live below. nasa announces press conference about search for life beyond earth.....