They’re great candidates for life, especially given mounting ideas on the origin of life possibly being tied up with geochemistry and geology.
They’re lousy candidates for big biospheres that utterly transform the geochemistry such that you could see it far away like ours has, or for complex life, since the total energy flux available in potentially clement environments is miniscule compared to here. But Earth’s biosphere had to start with something a lot like the energy sources you have in the icy moons, not photosynthesis.
They’re great candidates for life, especially given mounting ideas on the origin of life possibly being tied up with geochemistry and geology.
They’re lousy candidates for big biospheres that utterly transform the geochemistry such that you could see it far away like ours has, or for complex life, since the total energy flux available in potentially clement environments is miniscule compared to here. But Earth’s biosphere had to start with something a lot like the energy sources you have in the icy moons, not photosynthesis.