Surprising Findings: Icy Moons of Gas Giants May Hold Best Chance for Alien LifeNew Study: NASA Mission to Europa May Detect Alien Life as Early as 2030. Credit: newatlas.com

A Recent Study Suggests We May Discover Alien Life in the Not So Distant Future – As Early As 2030

The study shows that the instruments on a spacecraft traveling to one of the most promising worlds for finding life are sensitive enough to detect a single living cell, even within an ice grain.

We often think of Mars or faraway exoplanets as potential places for extraterrestrial life, but surprisingly, the most promising locations seem to be the icy moons of gas giant planets in our own solar system. Both Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa are believed to have global oceans beneath their icy surfaces, with conditions and key molecules that could support life.

To get a better understanding of these conditions, NASA is planning to send a mission to one of these moons later this year. The Europa Clipper spacecraft will orbit Europa and gather data on its composition, geology, and internal ocean. It will also collect and analyze ice and dust grains that may be ejected into space in plumes. Although the mission was not specifically designed to search for life, a new study suggests it may do just that.

A team of scientists from the University of Washington and the Freie Universität Berlin conducted an experiment to test whether the instruments on Europa Clipper could detect microbes within ice grains. They simulated the conditions that the spacecraft will encounter in Europa's plumes by firing a thin stream of water into a vacuum, then using a laser to excite the droplets and analyzing them with mass spectrometry.

They used a common bacterium, Sphingopyxis alaskensis, as a stand-in for alien life. This organism thrives in cold, nutrient-poor environments, such as the waters off Alaska. Similar microbes form a scummy layer on the surface of oceans and can be carried into the air in sea spray. If similar life exists in Europa's ocean, it could potentially be carried into space on ice grains and detected by the mass spectrometer on Europa Clipper, which can detect negatively charged fatty acids and lipids.

The results of the experiment showed that the instrument could detect even a single cell within a single ice grain. This means that if there is life on Europa, it is possible for Europa Clipper to detect it when it arrives at the moon in 2030.

Although we have become somewhat accustomed to stories about the potential for extraterrestrial life on other planets or moons, this study is particularly exciting as it presents a real possibility for detecting actual alien life. The research was published in the journal Science Advances and we will eagerly await the arrival of Europa Clipper in 2030 to see what it may discover.

Source: newatlas.com
Alton Shaffer
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