NASA has recently announced its intentions to explore Jupiter's moon, Europa. According to Gizmag, the space agency officially asked the US Congress for $30 million dollars for its first mission, and hopes to study the ice moon for signs of life.

National Geographic reports that Europa has long been suspected of harboring a hidden, saltwater ocean that could be habitable. The key ingredients for life as we know it are essential elements like carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur, an energy source, and liquid water.

Europa has sulfur, as it is captured when flung into space from its volcanic sister moon, Io. The sulfur is then able to be converted into energy-rich compounds due to charged particles in Jupiter's magnetic field that consistently bombard Europa's surface.

Furthermore, liquid water lies under Europa's icy exterior. The push and pull of Jupiter and its several other moons keeps the water under the ice liquid, and a rocky seafloor could provide the nutrients needed for life. To top it off, Europa has more liquid water than our own planet, and is similar in size to Earth's moon. Could the possibility of life be any more tantalizing?

This is not the first time NASA has a made a study of a mission to Europa before. However, those studies were more conceptual in nature, and the new budget request now asks for double last year's appropriations to fund the build up to an actual mission. The mission's priority is high - it was deemed one of the "two highest priority flagships" along with the Mars Astrobiology Explorer-Cacher.

If Congress agrees to NASA's proposal, a high-tech probe would eventually be sent to Europa fitted with radar to penetrate the ice, an infrared spectrometer, a topographic camera, and an ion and neutral mass spectrometer. The mission may target the strange reddish vein-like cracks that cover Europa's surface, as geysers of water vapor have been discovered to erupt near them.