Is there life on Jupiter’s icy moon Europa? Scientists would like to find out.

“It does have the right ingredients,” said Robert Pappalardo, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lead author of a new study outlining what might be learned from a spacecraft that landed on the mysterious moon.

“It likely has water, and the right chemistry to support life, and the potential chemical fuel that could make life possible,” he said.

Europa is about the size of the Earth’s moon and covered in a thick sheet of ice estimated to be about 15 miles deep. But beneath that icy shell, scientists believe Europa contains a liquid, salty, global ocean that could be conducive to life.

Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo. Voyager I and II both flew past the moon in 1979 and found intriguing hints that its cracked icy surface could conceal a vast ocean.

More evidence of Europa’s hidden ocean was found by the Galileo spacecraft in 1996, when its magnetometer noticed the entire moon was acting as a conductor — indicating it has a salty ocean inside.

Scientists would like to send a spacecraft that can land on Europa.

“In the outer-planet community you have to think decades ahead,” he said. “But it is very exciting to think about and lay the foundations for the possible science objectives that we would go after.”