Scientists have long thought that our solar system's ocean worlds, such as Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moon Enceladus, may harbor extraterrestrial life in the form of microbes. But detecting it could be a challenge because missions to ocean worlds have relied on probes, not landers.
Probes pass only through a planet's or moon's atmosphere, kilometers away from the surface and interior. Spacecraft such as Europa Clipper (like Cassini before it) stay even farther away, not even entering the moon's exosphere.
To meet this challenge, Lily Clough and colleagues describe a method for detecting biochemical signatures using samples from wisps of gas escaping such worlds. The approach uses mass spectrometry to measure levels of isotopes produced during metabolic processes such as photosynthesis and methanogenesis. Machine learning techniques then assess whether those levels indicate the presence of life below.
The work is published in the journal Earth and Space Science.
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