Subterranean oceans on some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are the most likely places in the solar system to host extraterrestrial life. Still, until now, it was thought their icy crusts would make confirming anything impossible.
However, a new lab-based study shows that individual ice grains ejected from Europa and Enceladus may contain enough material for instruments to detect signs of life—if it exists. Crucially, that means NASA’s Europe Clipper missions—which will blast off in October on a six-year journey—may be able to confirm the existence of extraterrestrial life.. A mass spectrometer is an instrument that identifies the structure and chemical properties of molecules by converting them into ions, which are then subjected to electric and magnetic fields.
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is scheduled to launch on October 10 atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It will reach the Jupiter system in April 2030. The mission will spend four years studying Europa during at least 32 close flybys. Coinbase Revealed To Be Backing BlackRock’s ‘$5 Trillion By 2030’ Crypto Game-Changer After Bitcoin, Ethereum And XRP Price Pumpcracks in the moon’s icy crust that allow material from the watery interior to be ejected into space. New research shows that instruments destined for the next missions could find traces of a single cell in a single ice grain contained in a plume.
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