NASA aims to launch life-hunting mission to moons
NASA is planning to send probes to search for signs of biological activity on two potentially life-supporting alien worlds. Many astrobiologists say the moons Europa and Enceladus both harbour oceans of liquid water beneath its icy shells, which makes the moons solar system's two best bets to host alien life.
Under its Discovery Programme, NASA plans to explore the Jupiter moon Europa and possibly the Saturn moon Enceladus in the early to mid-2020s, Space.com reports. The programme aims to launch highly focused and relatively low-cost missions to various solar system destinations and to seek for life source.
NASA is expected to select the overall winner among the original Discovery programme applicant pool by September 2016. One of the dozen or so concepts submitted earlier in 2015 is the Enceladus Life Finder, or ELF, which aims to look for life on the Saturn’s moon.
In 2005, the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn has spotted geysers of water ice, salts, carbon-containing organics and other molecules erupting from the south polar region of the Enceladus. According to NASA, these jets merge to form a plume that reaches far out into space because of Saturn's intense gravitational pull.
Scientists believe the icy jets have contact with the Enceladus' underground ocean, which offers researchers the opportunity to gather samples from a potentially habitable alien environment without even touching down on the moon. As the plume reaches the space, a spacecraft could collect samples without landing at the surface of the moon to drill or melt ice.
"We think we have the highest chance of success of getting an indicator of life for really any mission at this point," ELF concept principal investigator Jonathan Lunine, of Cornell University, told Space.com. The plume serves as the “free samples," Lunine added.
Scientists tend to exploit the rare opportunity. As the oceans of Europa and Enceladus lie beneath miles of ice, it could make gathering samples by a landed mission tough. Cassini has passed through the plume many times, but the spacecraft was not equipped to search for life.
However, the ELF is reportedly capable to analyse the habitability of Enceladus' ocean and to search for evidence of biological activity. The spacecraft will carry two mass spectrometers, which will be used to study gaseous plume molecules and solid grains.
The instruments will study amino acids, fatty acids, methane and other molecules that will take three separate tests to prove the moon’s capability to support life. The “positive results for all three would strongly argue for life within Enceladus," the ELF team wrote in a paper presented at the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas.
"ELF brings the most compelling question in all of space science within reach of NASA’s Discovery Programme, providing an extraordinary opportunity to discover life elsewhere in the solar system in a low-cost programme," the team added.
Scientists may conduct a fourth life test, Lunine said, through a technology-demonstration instrument designed to identify the chirality or "handedness" of amino acids. Astrobiologists say all life-sustaining substances found on Earth use left-handed amino acids rather than right-handed ones, which if found in an extraterrestrial sample would give a strong indication of alien life.
If the ELF project will be chosen by NASA under the Discovery programme, the mission will be launched by 2020 or in 2021, Lunine said. The baseline concept calls for ELF to launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket and endure a 9.5-year-long journey to Saturn.
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