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NewsHour
Backgrounders
June 10, 1997:
A Gergen dialogue
with William Broad about his book "The Universe Below."
April 10, 1997:
NASA scientists explain the
findings from Europa.
Browse the NewsHour's science
coverage.
Outside
Links
Browse stories from the New York Times by William J. Broad and others on Europa. (note:
free, but registration is required.)
Browse Simon & Schusters' page on "The Universe Below: Discovering the Secrets of the Deep Sea."
|
 The
Online NewsHour asks:
Are there plans to send a probe to Europa to look for life? If
so, how would the probe test for life.
William Broad responds:
Big plans are afoot, though not yet announced. One possibility would
be for NASA to fly a radar probe that would deeply penetrate the moon's
ice and
better reveal whether a liquid ocean existed beneath the surface. If
the Galileo probe in the next two years can answer that question (which
it might
do by spotting liquid water coming through cracks in surface ice) then
perhaps the next mission would be a craft that would try to enter the interior
ocean to look for alien life. Seeing would be believing, in that case.
In addition to cameras, however, scientists would probably do many types
of microbial, chemical, biologic and acoustic tests. They are already thinking
about and planning for such extraterrestrial experimentation as they explore
the Earth's deep sea. Some even dream about exploring other worlds themselves
in submersibles, rather than with the aid of high-tech robots.
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