What NASA calls the ‘Platypus’ isn’t an animal, but could be a hint at where alien life lurks.
Theo Live Science, NASA has released new analysis regarding a strange image of what appears to be moving inside the icy shell of Europa, the alien world to which the agency is planning to send a probe.
That “strange object” was named the Platypus, because viewed from above it looked exactly like the head of a platypus.
Europa is one of the large faces of Jupiter that NASA believes could harbor life.
A little smaller than Earth’s moon, Europa is more like a planet. It has a magnetic field, an atmosphere containing thin oxygen, and a core of liquid iron. It is also believed to have an 18km thick icy crust that hides a salty ocean underneath.
Would that salty ocean bubble through the ice? The answer may lie in the interesting image of the “Platypus”.
“Platypus” is the nickname for an area about 37×67 km in size, containing chaotic terrain including mounds, ridges, ice blocks and dark reddish-brown material.
This is the youngest feature in the area photographed. New NASA analysis suggests that is most likely where Europa’s icy shell allows pockets of salt water from the moon’s underground ocean to flow into the surface lake.
About 50 km above the Platypus is a double ridge running east-west with strange stain-like markings around it, possibly residue from saltwater streams rising to the surface from Europa’s ocean.
Therefore, although the Platypus is not a flesh-and-blood platypus, along with the double ridge above, it is a testament to the hypothesis of an underground ocean in Europa that NASA strongly believes.
The movement of this structure also suggests that this moon is not a dead world, but on the contrary always operates like the earth, which gives it the ability to nurture life.
In addition, this could be an area that helps life-hunting ships access water carrying material seeping up from the underground ocean, which could provide evidence of potential organisms below.
The above images were recorded by the Jupiter Juno probe. But NASA has its own plan to take careful care of Europa with the Europa Clipper mission, scheduled to launch later this year.