This research offers hope for future missions such as the Europa Clipper, which will launch this fall. The clue lies in the instruments these missions carry: mass spectrometers that analyze the chemical composition of the sample. “Our results show that even very small amounts of cellular material can be identified by mass spectrometry,” says Fabian Klenner, lead author of the study. “This increases our confidence that we can detect Earth-like life with these new instruments.”
The study focused on a particular type of bacteria, Sphingopyxis alaskensis, which is known to thrive in cold, nutrient-poor environments. These tiny organisms are ideal candidates for existence on icy moons. The researchers simulated the ice cloud environment by spraying liquid water into a vacuum chamber and then analyzing the resulting droplets using a laser. The study found that instruments such as Europa Clipper’s surface dust analyzer can detect cellular material from as few as one in hundreds of thousands of ice particles.
Success depends on analyzing individual particles into which the biomaterial can be concentrated, rather than averaging over a large sample. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of detecting fingerprints of life.
Source: Ferra
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