Tom Brosz said:

>But I wouldn't bet the farm at this point that energy-rich chemical soups like
>Jupiter are totally sterile, and I still have high hopes for some of the moons like
>Europa.

Europa has potential for life because it has an ocean and thermal gradiants due to interaction with Jupiter's gravitational field. Detecting European life maybe very difficult due to the radiation environment around Europa.

Jupiter is guaranteed to be sterile. The atmosphere of Jupiter was originally modelled by a scientist / aeronautical engineer named Al Seiff (one of my heros). At a public lecture, Al Seiff was asked if there could be life on Jupiter. He was quite scathing in his response. He made the well known point that Jupiter has very deep convection currents in its atmosphere. The entire upper atmosphere has gone through the process of being transported from deep within the atmosphere where it is so hot that no molecular bonds can form and all material is purely atomic. As this material is transported upwards, it cools and forms into molecules including some fairly complex hydrocarbons. The same convection cells then transports this material back down into the atmospheric abyss where the material is decomposed back into purely atomic form. Hydrocarbon based life is impossible in this sort of environment.

Gary