Cosmic Oven: How Heat Baked the Building Blocks of Life on Jupiter's Moons express
Life may be hiding in the oceans beneath the ice of Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Its carbon-based building blocks perhaps baked before the moons were born — in a disk of gas and dust around a young Jupiter. This giant cosmic oven ran on slow frictional heating, not harsh ultraviolet light. Icy grains of ammonia and carbon dioxide, like dough, circulated in the warmth for months, turning into amino acids and sugars. The heating gently assembled molecules, without tearing them apart like UV light does.
When the disk cooled, the moons were born. Europa ended up in a cool spot, like on the bottom shelf of a fridge, while Ganymede and Callisto went into the freezer. The temperature kept the complex organics almost untouched. Soon, the JUICE and Europa Clipper probes will scan liquid water beneath the crust using spectrographs and check how well these cosmic loaves have baked.
Icy crumbs of ammonia and carbon dioxide turn into sugars and amino acids in warmth, just as easily as regular sugar becomes caramel.
The search for organic molecules on icy moons echoes the plot of the film 'Europa' (2013) — but in reality, probes are already on their way.