{"id":17221,"date":"2024-03-22T23:16:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T15:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/researchers-find-a-way-to-detect-signs-of-extraterrestrial-life-in-a-single-grain-of-ice\/"},"modified":"2024-03-22T23:16:41","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T15:16:41","slug":"researchers-find-a-way-to-detect-signs-of-extraterrestrial-life-in-a-single-grain-of-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/researchers-find-a-way-to-detect-signs-of-extraterrestrial-life-in-a-single-grain-of-ice\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers find a way to detect signs of extraterrestrial life in a single grain of ice"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"328\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240321-europa2-630x328.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-815943\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240321-europa2-630x328.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240321-europa2-1260x656.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240321-europa2-768x400.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240321-europa2-1536x799.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/240321-europa2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">An artist\u2019s conception shows NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper probe flying over Europa. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Scientists have verified that a method to look for cellular life on Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter, just might work. The technique could be put to the test in the 2030s, when NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper probe is due to make multiple flybys over the Jovian moon. <\/p>\n<p>The technique involves analyzing grains of ice that scientists expect one of the instruments on Europa Clipper \u2014 known as the Surface Dust Analyzer, or SUDA \u2014 to pick up as it flies through plumes of frozen water rising up from Europa\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s astonishing how the analysis of these tiny ice grains may tell us whether or not there is life on an icy moon. At least we now know that SUDA has these capabilities,\u201d University of Washington planetary scientist Fabian Klenner told GeekWire in an email. Klenner is the lead author of a research paper about the process, published today in the open-access journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n<p>SUDA will be capable of analyzing the chemical content of material that hits its detector, using a process called impact ionization mass spectrometry. The key feature of the process described by Klenner and his colleagues is that the analysis would be done on single ice grains, rather than on a blizzard of ice particles. That way, scientists can focus on individual grains that might hold a high concentration of the ingredients of a single cell.<\/p>\n<p>Several moons of Jupiter and Saturn \u2014 including Europa, Callisto, Ganymede and Enceladus \u2014 are thought to harbor reservoirs of liquid water covered by ice. Observations made during NASA\u2019s Cassini mission to Saturn indicated that the plumes of ice grains emanating from Enceladus\u2019 hidden seas through its icy surface contain a diverse complement of organic compounds. That has led scientists to suspect that something similar might be found on Europa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are many ice grains around&nbsp;Europa&nbsp;because interplanetary meteoroids impact on&nbsp;Europa\u2019s surface and produce a tenuous cloud of ice grains around the moon \u2014 a paradise for an instrument like SUDA,\u201d Klenner said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What You Need to Know About Europa\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GS6feMWzwIY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The idea of seeking out chemical traces of life in the stuff coming up from Europa goes at least as far back as the 1990s, when physicist Freeman Dyson suggested looking for \u201cfreeze-dried fish in the ring of space debris orbiting Jupiter.\u201d Freeze-dried fish might be too much to ask, but bits of Europan ice could conceivable contain cellular life, or at least fragments of cells.<\/p>\n<p>To test SUDA\u2019s capabilities, Klenner and his colleagues conducted simulations using similar equipment in their lab. They sent a spray of water droplets containing bacteria and bacterial fragments through their laser-equipped lab device, in such a way that individual droplets could be analyzed.<\/p>\n<p>The experimental equipment was able to make out the chemical signature of the bacteria in the droplets that contained cellular material. The signature of the cells was clearer in the smaller droplets, but it was also detectable in droplets that were at the high end of what the scientists expect to see when SUDA is on the case.<\/p>\n<p>One mode of operation, focusing on positively charged ions, was better-suited for detecting amino acids. The other mode, which looked for negatively charged ions, worked better for identifying fatty acids.<\/p>\n<p>The newly published findings will be fed into the preparations for the Europa Clipper mission. The spacecraft is due for launch in October \u2014 and should go into orbit around Jupiter in 2030 to begin four years of scientific observations. One of the co-authors of the Science Advances study, Sascha Kempf, is the principal investigator for the SUDA instrument.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur results certainly affect the way we will interpret data returned by SUDA and similar instruments,\u201d Klenner said. \u201cI am personally very curious about the anion measurements [relating to negatively charged ions] because fatty acids, which are contained in bacterial lipids, like to form anions. And our results show that fatty acid patterns can tell us whether or not they came from a bacterial cell.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A different study published earlier this week by Science Advances determined that Europa\u2019s icy shell is probably more than 20 kilometers (12 miles) thick \u2014 so thick that layers of ice could be turning over continually. Klenner noted that the authors of that study say \u201cthere are regions in the conductive lid layer, so-called melt pools, which may cause exchange from the surface with the ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf Europa Clipper confirms that there are indeed ice-ocean exchange processes, then this moon has a mechanism to transport material from the ocean to the surface, and the instruments on board Europa Clipper could analyze material that once came from the ocean \u2014 maybe even cellular material, if present at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>SUDA isn\u2019t the only instrument that\u2019s likely to be capable of identifying cellular material in a grain of ice. Klenner and his colleagues note that impact ionization mass spectrometers with similar capabilities are being considered for future missions to Enceladus, as well as for NASA\u2019s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe and Japan\u2019s DESTINY+ mission to the asteroid Phaeton.<\/p>\n<p><em>In addition to Klenner and Kempf, co-authors of the study published by Science Advances, \u201cHow to Identify Cell Material in a Single Ice Grain Emitted From Enceladus or Europa,\u201d include Janine B\u00f6nigk, Maryse Napoleoni, Jon Hillier, Nozair Khawaja, Karen Olsson-Francis, Morgan Cable, Michael Malaska, Bernd Abel and Frank Postberg.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper probe flying over Europa. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Illustration) Scientists have verified that a method to look for cellular life on Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter, just might work. The technique could be put to the test in the 2030s, when NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper probe is due to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1874,1559,1659,4368],"class_list":["post-17221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astrobiology","tag-enceladus","tag-europa","tag-university-of-washington"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}