Europa, Meteorites & Asteroids, Origin & Evolution of Life, Panspermia, Planetary Protection & Biosafety, Status Report, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Earth As A Potential Source Of Llife For Europa’s Subsurface Ocean

by Keith CowingJune 22, 2026June 21, 2026

An artist's rendering of Europa and Jupiter based on images sent by visiting spacecraft. Europa is the closest orbiting of the three Jupiter’s large ‘Galilean’ moons to be visited by Juice – any human astronaut that lands there would receive a lethal radiation dose on a timescale of hours. And spacecraft electronics are almost as susceptible to radiation as human biology. CREDIT NASA/JPL-Caltech

The paper discusses the possibility of dust particles containing living bacteria ejected from Earth reaching Europa and landing on its surface.

It is shown that, taking certain factors into account, over a period of 30 − 80 Myr (the estimated age of Europa’s ocean), Jupiter’s moon would have been impacted by approximately 3 × 10²³ to 8 × 10²³ particles in total, within which a bacterium could have survived.

In the paper, we discuss the possibility of dust grains entering liquid water beneath the surface.

Earth As A Potential Source Of life For Europa’s Subsurface Ocean, International Journal of Astrobiology

Astrobiology, Panspermia,

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp... More by Keith Cowing