[Brian Swartz]

Could be fish, could be similar to some of the 'exotic' life at the bottom of the ocean near vents, etc. Basically just life that is more developed than the microbe/bacteria level.

I think we can definitely get a lander there sooner, but ...

- As best we know, this mission will clarify the situation if it goes well, the water on Europa is under a layer of ice. NASA estimates the ice to be 10-15 miles thick currently. Which is a problem. There are more options for dealing with ice than dealing with rock of course, but we've gone about 7 miles at the deepest drilling into the Earth's crust. We can use whatever equipment we can build here of course. Hundreds of millions of miles away with communications lag of over 20 minutes at closest approach each way and a quite limited viable payload size is a little bit different.

- Nothing we put on Europa's surface or near it will last long, due to Jupiter's radiation belts. A few months is the longest they think our current most-hardened spacecraft can last. That's why Europa Clipper is both prepared for the radiation but also not going into orbit around Europa, but rather doing dozens of flybys.

So basically, if our best guesses so far are accurate, we need to be able to get through miles of ice to take some sort of assessment of the water underneath. Whatever does that needs to be able to operate with very minimal direction from Earth and do it quickly so that it's still functioning when it gets to where the water is. Or else find a way to predict where cracks in the ice will form and be able to get into them before they re-freeze, which ... maybe that's more possible than I think, but it seems like a pipe dream to me. We can't even accurately predict what a lot of the tectonic plates on Earth are going to do.

I just think it's fascinating that from what I know about it, the conditions are really good for life - a large volume of water if we're correct, heated by tidal forces flexing Europa's core - but at the same time actually getting to it and finding out what's there is a monumental undertaking. I'm also super-curious to get more information from the mission in terms of confirming the water that we think is there, and how thick the ice is, and all of that ... would go a long way towards narrowing down just how viable it would be to actually investigate further.