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Below its icy crust, Europa is believed to host a global ocean up to a hundred miles (160 kilometers) deep, with no land to speak of at the surface.

The extraterrestrial ocean is currently being fed more than a hundred times more oxygen than previous models had suggested, according to provocative new research.

That amount of oxygen would be enough to support more than just microscopic life-forms, and at least three million tons of fishlike creatures could theoretically live and breathe on Europa, according to Greenberg.

“There’s nothing saying there is life there now,” said Greenberg, who presented his work last month at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. “But we do know there are the physical conditions to support it,” he added.

Phenomenica | Ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa...