Icy Worlds

Spectroscopic Detection of Biosignatures in Natural Ice Samples as a Proxy for Icy Moons

By Keith Cowing

Press Release

February 15, 2023

Filed under Biosignatures, Callisto, Charon, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, icy worlds, Mimas, Triton

Spectroscopic Detection of Biosignatures in Natural Ice Samples as a Proxy for Icy Moons — (Top half) Composition of Europa, highlighting the icy crust with its characteristic ridges atop a liquid ocean. The plumes of Europa are not depicted, as these are small and more difficult to identify. (Bottom half) Structure of Enceladus with its plumes ejecting material from the tiger stripes in the South Pole. (Note that Europa and Enceladus are not to scale, as Europa is more than six times the diameter of Enceladus.) Depiction of the Cassini spacecraft performing a flyby. Image credit to Catarina Miranda. Images of Cassini, Saturn and Jupiter presented are credited to ESA and NASA [34,35,36] — Life

Some of the icy moons of the solar system with a subsurface ocean, such as Europa and Enceladus, are the targets of future space missions that search for potential extraterrestrial life forms.

While the ice shells that envelop these moons have been studied by several spacecrafts, the oceans beneath them remain unreachable. To better constrain the habitability conditions of these moons, we must understand the interactions between their frozen crusts, liquid layers, and silicate mantles. To that end, astrobiologists rely on planetary field analogues, for which the polar regions of Earth have proven to be great candidates.

This review shows how spectroscopy is a powerful tool in space missions to detect potential biosignatures, in particular on the aforementioned moons, and how the polar regions of the Earth are being used as planetary field analogues for these extra-terrestrial environments.

by Francisco Calapez, Rodrigo Dias, Rute Cesário, Diogo Gonçalves, Bruno Pedras, João Canário, and Zita Martins

Spectroscopic Detection of Biosignatures in Natural Ice Sa m ples as a Proxy for Icy Moons, life (open access)

Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

Follow on Twitter