A lander mission to probe subglacial water on Saturn's moon Enceladus for life
The plumes discovered by the Cassini mission emanating from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus and the unique chemistry found in them have fueled speculations that Enceladus may harbor life. The presumed aquiferous fractures from which the plumes emanate would make a prime target in the...
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| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2015
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| Online Access: | http://athene-forschung.unibw.de/node?id=109723 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00945765/106 |
| Summary: | The plumes discovered by the Cassini mission emanating from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus and the unique chemistry found in them have fueled speculations that Enceladus may harbor life. The presumed aquiferous fractures from which the plumes emanate would make a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life and would be more easily accessible than the moon's subglacial ocean. A lander mission that is equipped with a subsurface maneuverable ice melting probe will be most suitable to assess the existence of life on Enceladus. A lander would have to land at a safe distance away from a plume source and melt its way to the inner wall of the fracture to analyze the plume subsurface liquids before potential biosignatures are degraded or destroyed by exposure to the vacuum of space. A possible approach for the in situ detection of biosignatures in such samples can be based on the hypothesis of universal evolutionary convergence, meaning that the independent and repeated emer- gence of life and certain adaptive traits is wide-spread throughout the cosmos. We thus present a hypothetical evolutionary trajectory leading towards the emergence of metha- nogenic chemoautotrophic microorganisms as the baseline for putative biological com- plexity on Enceladus. To detect their presence, several instruments are proposed that may be taken aboard a future subglacial melting probe. The “Enceladus Explorer” (EnEx) project funded by the German Space Administration (DLR), aims to develop a terrestrial navigation system for a subglacial research probe and eventually test it under realistic conditions in Antarctica using the EnEx-IceMole, a novel maneuverable subsurface ice melting probe for clean sampling and in situ analysis of ice and subglacial liquids. As part of the EnEx project, an initial concept study is foreseen for a lander mission to Enceladus to deploy the IceMole near one of the active water plumes on the moon's South-Polar Terrain, where it will search for signatures of life. The general mission concept ... |
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