Astronomers feel that ocean worlds like Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus may be our best hope for finding life outside of our own planet. Both are icy with a subsurface ocean.
The discovery of complex organic molecules that rise in plumes from Enceladus’ ocean further suggests the moon could support life as we know it. Old data from NASA’s Gallileo mission to Jupiter in 1997 revealed that plumes of water and icy materials erupt from a hot spot on Europa.
NASA plans to further explore ocean worlds in our solar system through the Europa Clipper mission, the first of its kind. The Europa Clipper, named for the innovative sailing ships of the 1800s, will launch in the 2020’s and arrive at Europa a few years later.
Europa Clipper’s instruments will be capable of analyzing the atmosphere of Europa. NASA is planning more than 40 fly-bys, each less than 228 miles above the surface of the moon. Europa’s plumes have been observed to reach 124 to 228 miles above its surface.
NASA is also looking further at Enceladus. Although the Cassini mission made close fly-bys of the moon before coming to an end in 2017, detecting complex organic molecules in its plumes needs further investigation.
“Specific identification of these organic compounds is the next step in our research for life in Enceladus’ ocean,” said Hunter Waite, program director at the Southwest Research Institute and Cassini’s Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer principal investigator. “The complexity of the organic compounds identified was beyond our wildest expectations — nonsuluble complex organics floating as a film on an alien ocean. Wrap your head around that.”
Where else do you think we should look for life?
