Moon · orbits Jupiter
Europa
An Ocean With a Lid
Europa: a shell of ice over a salt ocean that may hold twice the water of Earth, and one of the best places to look for life.
What the song is built on
- A shell of ice over a salty ocean that may hold twice Earth's water
- Its surface is the smoothest in the Solar System, cracked with long red lines
- One of the best places to look for life beyond Earth
- NASA's Europa Clipper is on its way, launched in 2024
Established astronomy. The music is an interpretation of it — see the curatorial policy.
SoundUnder-ice ambient electronic, muffled bass pulses, glassy textures, sonar-like pings, hushed female vocal, 74 BPM, blue and mysterious
Lyrics
[Intro]
Knock on the ice
Something is listening
[Verse 1]
The smoothest surface in the Solar System
No mountains and no craters left
Just long red lines across the white
Where the ice has cracked and shifted and slept
Underneath, a hundred kilometres down
Salt water moving in the dark
More water here than all your oceans twice
And not one single spark
[Chorus]
I am an ocean with a lid
I am the question nobody can answer yet
If anything is swimming here
It is the one thing you will never forget
[Verse 2]
Jupiter pulls me, kneads me, keeps me warm
The same hand that sets Io alight
Gives me liquid instead of fire
And a chance to hide a life
Clipper left in twenty twenty-four
Crossing the dark to find out what I keep
Fifty flybys, cameras and ice radar
To read what's written underneath the deep
[Bridge]
Maybe nothing. Maybe salt and stone.
Maybe the second beginning.
Either answer changes everything you know
About how alone you are, and how the odds are running
[Final Chorus]
I am an ocean with a lid
I am the question nobody can answer yet
If anything is swimming here
It is the one thing you will never forget
[Outro]
Knock on the ice
Wait
Europa goes round
Solar System — 2026 Founding Edition — one of 30 songs, frozen as published.