NASA is embarking on a risky mission to one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, where scientists suspect there are signs of life, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

The robotic journey will cost around $15 million and will be launched sometime in the mid-2020s, NASA Chief Financial Officer Elizabeth Robinson told the AP.

Europa, completely surrounded by ice, is smaller than the Earth's moon. There is a vast ocean believed to be trapped beneath the frozen surface. Scientists discovered gusts of water shooting out from Europa's surface last year.

"If Europa's ocean is proven to exist, it would possess more than twice as much water as Earth," according to NASA.

The water is the reason why scientists suspect there is life on the moon.

"With abundant liquid water, and energy and chemistry provided by tidal heating, Europa could be the best place in the solar system to look for present day life beyond Earth," NASA said.

Factors including Jupiter's distance from the Earth and high radiation levels around the planet make it difficult to reach the moon, Robinson told the AP.

This is potentially a "daring mission to an extremely compelling object in our solar system," astronomer Laurie Leshin, from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, told the AP.

This is not the first time NASA has attempted to probe Jupiter's moon. The space organization sent the spacecraft Galileo to Jupiter, the fifth planet from the sun, in 1989. It took six years for Galileo to reach Jupiter, the AP reported. A total of eight spacecrafts have flown by Europa, with none of them focusing solely on the moon.

"It's one of those places where life might occur, in the past or now, and so we're really excited about going there," Robinson said, Reuters reported.

"There might be fish under the ice," Avi Loeb, an astronomer from Harvard University, told the AP.