From Eric Dabbs, Johannesburg, South Africa
Leah Crane and Richard Webb allude to the possibility of life in the subsurface seas of the Jovian moon Europa (25 May, p 34). I enjoyed the article but ask: what about Jupiter itself?
It has an internal energy source and plenty of the right ingredients for life. Perhaps its rich variety of hues has a biological origin? If life can adapt from an aquatic to a terrestrial mode on Earth, why not to an aerosol lifestyle too?
Wherever life originally arose, in our solar system or elsewhere, there is ample evidence of major impacts allowing redistribution of life forms. A clear signature of life is chirality: “handedness” of molecules such as amino acids, sugars, RNA and DNA. Could any of the instruments on the Juno probe detect this?
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