Top Swiss NASA official hopes to find life on moon of Jupiter

A colour view of Jupiter's moon Europa surface taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft Keystone / Nasa/jpl-caltech/seti Institute

Thomas Zurbuchen, the retiring science chief at NASA, expects major changes in our understanding of the universe in the next 20 to 30 years. There is also a “significant chance of finding life outside Earth” in this time span, he believes.

Such a discovery would change the entire discussion about life, Zurbuchen said on Tuesday on Swiss public television, SRFExternal link.

He said extra-terrestrial life was possible on Jupiter’s moon Europa, for example, where NASA researchers suspect an ocean exists under a layer of ice. “If there are traces of life on Europa, it will change the whole discussion about life in the universe,” he said.

Zurbuchen was born in 1968 in Heiligenschwendi near Thun, central Switzerland, and studied physics and mathematics at the University of Bern. He later went to the University of Michigan in the US and in 2016 to NASA, the US space agency, where he was responsible for more than 100 scientific missions.

The astrophysicist is stepping down at the end of the year after more than six years at the head of the NASA research team.

“Over the years, our NASA team has reached unimaginable goals that have strengthened the programme. Now is the time for change, and the opportunity to give other great leaders the chance to push the boundaries and take our program to new heights,” he said in September.