The possibility of extraterrestrial life has fascinated humanity for centuries. Currently, a number of space research projects are at least partly dedicated to the search for life on other worlds such as Mars and Enceladus. Against this backdrop, terrestrial laboratory experiments simulating extraterrestrial physical and geochemical conditions that might alter molecular traces of life are...
Ocean worlds in the outer Solar System are prime targets for the search of life beyond Earth [1]. So far, Enceladus is the only extraterrestrial ocean world whose subsurface material was sampled by the Cassini spacecraft. Enceladus throws its subsurface material into space in the form of ice grains and gas from the moon’s south polar region. Most of the ice grains fall back onto the surface...
Observations of Enceladus have shown water jets expelling from the surface. These jets originate from a subsurface ocean and formed Saturn’s E-ring. Further observations of the plumes have led to the consensus that Enceladus likely holds a porous chondritic mineralogy, hydrothermal environments, and several building blocks necessary for the formation of life (e.g., HCN, NH3, CO2). Numerous...
