How Badly Will Humanity Freak Out if We Discover Alien Life?

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) listens for radio signals from other civilizations. In this image, radio-telescopes in SETI's Allen Telescope Array (ATA) are hard at work with the Milky Way in the background. Image: SETI

The discovery of alien life is one of those things that everyone thinks about at some point. Hollywood has made their version of first contact very clear: huge alien vessels appear over Earth’s cities, panic ensues, and Will Smith saves the day with a Windows 3.1 virus. It’s lots of fun—and who knows?—it may end up being accurate. (Not the Windows 3.1 part.) But sci-fi books and movies aside, what do we really know about our attitude to the discovery of alien life?

We have an organization (SETI) dedicated to detecting the presence of alien civilizations, and we have a prominent scientist (Stephen Hawking) warning against advertising our own presence. Those represent the extremes—actively seeking out alien life vs. hiding from it—but what is the collective attitude towards the discovery of alien life? Scientists at Arizona State University (ASU) have studied that issue and detailed their results in a new study published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology.

The team of scientists tried to gauge people’s reactions to the discovery of alien life in three separate parts of their study. In the first case, they examined media reports of past announcements about the discovery of alien life, for example the announcement in 1996 that evidence of microbial life had been found in a Martian metorite.

Secondly, they asked a sample of over 500 people what their own reactions, and the reactions of the rest of humanity, would be to the hypothetical announcement of alien life.

Thirdly, the 500 people were split into two groups. Half were asked to read and respond to a real newspaper story announcing the discovery of fossilized Martian microbial life. The other half were asked to read and respond to a newspaper article announcing the creation of synthetic life by Craig Venter.

Martian meteorite ALH84001 was found in Antarctica in 1984 by a group of meteorite hunters from the US. Scientists who studied it suggested that it contained evidence of ancient Martian microbial life. Image: By Jstuby at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47556214

In all three cases the life was microbial in nature. Microbial life is the simplest life form, so it should be what we expect to find. This is certainly true in our own Solar System, since the existence of any other intelligent life has been ruled out here, while microbial life has not.

Also, in all three cases, the language of the respondents and the language in the media reports was analyzed for positive and negative words. A specialized piece of software called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) was used. It’s text-analysis software that scans written language and identifies instances of words that reflect positive affect, negative affect, reward, or risk. (You can try LIWC here for fun, if you like.)

Electron microscope images of the Martian meteorite ALH84001 showed chain-like structures that resembled living structures. Image: NASA

Analyzing Media Reports

The media reports used in the study were all from what the team considers reputable journalism outlets like The New York Times and Science Magazine. The reports were about things like unidentified signals from space that could have been alien in nature, fossilized microbial remains in meteorites, and the discovery of exoplanets in the habitable zones of other solar systems. There were 15 articles in total.

The authors of the study wanted to find out how people would react to the discovery of alien life, and to the discovery of potentially habitable exoplanets which might harbor life. In this artist’s illustration, exoplanets orbit a young, red dwarf star. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltec

Overall, the study showed that language in media reports about alien life was more positive than negative, and emphasized reward rather than risk. So people generally find the potential of alien life to be a positive thing and something to be looked forward to. However, this part of the study showed something else: People were more positively disposed towards news of alien life that was microbial than they were towards alien life that could be present on exoplanets, where, presumably, it might be more than merely microbial. So, microbes we can handle, but something more advanced and a little doubt starts to creep in.

Reactions to Hypothetical Announcements of Alien Life

This part of the study aimed to assess people’s beliefs regarding how both they as individuals—and humanity as a whole—might react to the discovery of alien microbial life. The same LIWC software was used to analyze the written responses of the 500 people in the sample group.

The results were similar to the first part of the study, at least for the individuals themselves. Positive affect was more predominant than negative aspect, and words reflecting reward were more predominant than words reflecting risk. This probably isn’t surprising, but the study did show something more interesting.

When participants were asked about how the rest of humanity would respond to the announcement of alien life, the response was different. While positive language still outweighed negative language, and reward still outweighed risk, the differences weren’t as pronounced as they were for individuals. So people seem to think that others won’t be looking forward to the discovery of alien life as much as they themselves do.

Actual Reactions to the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life

This is hard to measure since we haven’t actually discovered any yet. But there have been times when we thought we might have.

In this part of the study, the group of 500 respondents was split into two groups of 250. The first was asked to read an actual 1996 New York Times article announcing the discovery of fossilized microbes in the Martian meteorite. The second group was asked to read a New York Times article from 2010 announcing the creation of life by Craig Venter. The goal was to find out if the positive bias towards the discovery of microbial life was specific to microbial life, or to scientific advancements overall.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus could harbor microbial life in the warm salty water thought to exist under its frozen surface. Respondents in the study seemed to like that possibility. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

This part of the study found the same emphasis on positive affect over negative affect, and reward over risk. This held true in both cases: the Martian microbial life article, and the artificially created life article. The type of article played a minor role in people’s responses. Results were slightly more positive towards the Martian life story than the artificial life story.

Overall, this study shows that people seem positively disposed towards the discovery of alien life. This is reflected in media coverage, people’s personal responses, and people’s expectations of how others would react.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg, though. As the authors say in their study, this is the first empirical attempt to understand any of this. And the study was only 500 people, all Americans.

How different the results might be in other countries and cultures is still an open question. Would populations whose attitudes are more strongly shaped by religion respond differently? Would the populations of countries that have been invaded and dominated by other countries be more nervous about alien life or habitable exoplanets? There’s only conjecture at this point.

Maybe we’re novelty-seekers and we thrive on new discoveries. Or maybe we’re truth-seekers, and that’s reflected in the study. Maybe some of the positivity reflects our fear of being alone. If Earth is the only life-supporting world, that’s a very lonely proposition. Not only that, but it’s an awesome responsibility: we better not screw it up!

Still, the results are encouraging for humanity. We seem, at least according to this first study, open to the discovery of alien life.

But that might change when the first alien ship casts its shadow over Los Angeles.

February 5, 2018June 20, 2020 by Evan Gough

Good News For The Search For Life, The Trappist System Might Be Rich In Water

This artist’s impression shows several of the planets orbiting the ultra-cool red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1. New observations and analysis have yielded good estimates of the densities of all seven of the Earth-sized planets and suggest that they are rich in volatile materials, probably water. Image Credit: ESO

When we finally find life somewhere out there beyond Earth, it’ll be at the end of a long search. Life probably won’t announce its presence to us, we’ll have to follow a long chain of clues to find it. Like scientists keep telling us, at the start of that chain of clues is water.

The discovery of the TRAPPIST-1 system last year generated a lot of excitement. 7 planets orbiting the star TRAPPIST-1, only 40 light years from Earth. At the time, astronomers thought at least some of them were Earth-like. But now a new study shows that some of the planets could hold more water than Earth. About 250 times more.

Continue reading “Good News For The Search For Life, The Trappist System Might Be Rich In Water”

January 19, 2018 by Evan Gough

Researchers Develop a New Low Cost/Low Weight Method of Searching for Life on Mars

Study co-author I. Altshuler sampling permafrost terrain near the McGill Arctic research station, Canadian high Arctic. Image: Dr. Jacqueline Goordial

Researchers at Canada’s McGill University have shown for the first time how existing technology could be used to directly detect life on Mars and other planets. The team conducted tests in Canada’s high arctic, which is a close analog to Martian conditions. They showed how low-weight, low-cost, low-energy instruments could detect and sequence alien micro-organisms. They presented their results in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

Getting samples back to a lab to test is a time consuming process here on Earth. Add in the difficulty of returning samples from Mars, or from Ganymede or other worlds in our Solar System, and the search for life looks like a daunting task. But the search for life elsewhere in our Solar System is a major goal of today’s space science. The team at McGill wanted to show that, conceptually at least, samples could be tested, sequenced, and grown in-situ at Mars or other locations. And it looks like they’ve succeeded.

Recent and current missions to Mars have studied the suitability of Mars for life. But they don’t have the ability to look for life itself. The last time a Mars mission was designed to directly search for life was in the 1970’s, when NASA’s Viking 1 and 2 missions landed on the surface. No life was detected, but decades later people still debate the results of those missions.

The Viking 2 lander captured this image of itself on the Martian surface. The Viking Landers were the last missions to directly look for life on Mars. By NASA - NASA website; description,[1] high resolution image.[2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17624 — The Viking 2 lander captured this image of itself on the Martian surface. The Viking Landers were the last missions to directly look for life on Mars. By NASA – NASA website; description,[1] high resolution image.[2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17624

But Mars is heating up, figuratively speaking, and the sophistication of missions to Mars keeps growing. With crewed missions to Mars a likely reality in the not-too-distant future, the team at McGill is looking ahead to develop tools to search for life there. And they focused on miniature, economical, low-energy technology. Much of the current technology is too large or demanding to be useful on missions to Mars, or to places like Enceladus or Europa, both future destinations in the Search for Life.

“To date, these instruments remain high mass, large in size, and have high energy requirements. Such instruments are entirely unsuited for missions to locations such as Europa or Enceladus for which lander packages are likely to be tightly constrained.”

The team of researchers from McGill, which includes Professor Lyle Whyte and Dr. Jacqueline Goordial, have developed what they are calling the ‘Life Detection Platform (LDP).’ The platform is modular, so that different instruments can be swapped out depending on mission requirements, or as better instruments are developed. As it stands, the Life Detection Platform can culture microorganisms from soil samples, assess microbial activity, and sequence DNA and RNA.

There are already instruments available that can do what the LDP can do, but they’re bulky and require more energy to operate. They aren’t suitable for missions to far-flung destinations like Enceladus or Europa, where sub-surface oceans might harbour life. As the authors say in their study, “To date, these instruments remain high mass, large in size, and have high energy requirements. Such instruments are entirely unsuited for missions to locations such as Europa or Enceladus for which lander packages are likely to be tightly constrained.”

A key part of the system is a miniaturized, portable DNA sequencer called the Oxford Nanopore MiniON. The team of researchers behind this study were able to show for the first time that the MiniON can examine samples in extreme and remote environments. They also showed that when combined with other instruments it can detect active microbial life. The researches succeeded in isolatinh microbial extremophiles, detecting microbial activity, and sequencing the DNA. Very impressive indeed.

This image shows the instruments tested in the Life Detection Platform. Image: J. Goordial et. al.

These are early days for the Life Detection Platform. The system required hands-on operation in these tests. But it does show proof of concept, an important stage in any technological development. “Humans were required to carry out much of the experimentation in this study, while life detection missions on other planets will need to be robotic,” says Dr Goordial.

“Humans were required to carry out much of the experimentation in this study, while life detection missions on other planets will need to be robotic.” – Dr. J. Goordial

The system as it stands now is useful here on Earth. The same things that allow it to search for and sequence microorganisms on other worlds make it suitable for the same task here on Earth. “The types of analyses performed by our platform are typically carried out in the laboratory, after shipping samples back from the field,” says Dr. Goordial. This makes the system desirable for studying epidemics in remote areas, or in rapidly changing conditions where transporting samples to distant labs can be problematic.

These are very exciting times in the Search for Life in our Solar System. If, or when, we discover microbial life on Mars, Europa, Enceladus, or some other world, it will likely be done robotically, using equipment similar to the LDP.

December 22, 2017 by Evan Gough

Yes Please! NASA is Considering a Helicopter Mission to Titan

In this illustration, the Dragonfly helicopter drone is descending to the surface of Titan. Image: NASA

The only thing cooler than sending a helicopter drone to explore Titan is sending a nuclear powered one to do the job. Called the “Dragonfly” spacecraft, this helicopter drone mission has been selected as one of two finalists for NASA’s robotic exploration missions planned for the mid 2020’s. NASA selected the Dragonfly mission from 12 proposals they were considering under their New Horizons program.

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, and is a primary target in the search for life in our Solar System. Titan has liquid hydrocarbon lakes on its surface, a carbon-rich chemistry, and sub-surface oceans. Titan also cycles methane the way Earth cycles water.

This true-color image of Titan, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, shows the moon's thick, hazy atmosphere. Image: By NASA - http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14602, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44822294 — This true-color image of Titan, taken by the Cassini spacecraft, shows the moon’s thick, hazy atmosphere. Image: By NASA – http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA14602, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44822294

Dragonfly would fulfill its mission by hopping around on the surface of Titan. Once an initial landing site is selected on Titan, Dragonfly will land there with the assistance of a ‘chute. Dragonfly will spend periods of time on the ground, where it will charge its batteries with its radioisotope thermoelectric generator. Once charged, it would then fly for hours at time, travelling tens of kilometers during each flight. Titan’s dense atmosphere and low gravity (compared to Earth) allows for this type of mission.

During these individual flights, potential landing sites would be identified for further scientific work. Dragonfly will return to its initial landing site, and only visit other sites once they have been verified as safe.

Dragonfly is being developed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHAPL.) It has a preliminary design weight of 450 kg. It’s a double quad-copter design, with four sets of dual rotors.

“Titan is a fascinating ocean world,” said APL’s Elizabeth Turtle, principal investigator for Dragonfly. “It’s the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere, weather, clouds, rain, and liquid lakes and seas—and those liquids are ethane and methane. There’s so much amazing science and discovery to be done on Titan, and the entire Dragonfly team and our partners are thrilled to begin the next phase of concept development.”

The science objectives of the Dragonfly mission center around prebiotic organic chemistry and habitability on Titan. It will likely have four instruments:

Mass Spectrometer
Gamma-Ray Spectrometer
Atmospheric and Geophysical Sensors
Cameras

Being chosen as a finalist has the team behind Dragonfly excited for the project. “This brings us one step closer to launching a bold and very exciting space exploration mission to Titan,” said APL Director Ralph Semmel. “We are grateful for the opportunity to further develop our New Frontiers proposals and excited about the impact these NASA missions will have for the world.”

Exploring Titan holds a daunting set of challenges. But as we’ve seen in recent years, NASA and its partners have the capability to meet those challenges. The JHAPL team behind Dragonfly also designed and built the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69. Their track record of success has everyone excited about the Dragonfly mission.

The Dragonfly mission, and the other finalist—the Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return being developed by Cornell University and the Goddard Space Flight Center—will each receive funding through the end of 2018 to work on the concepts. In the Spring of 2019, NASA will select one of them and will fund its continued development.

Dragonfly is part of NASA’s New Frontiers program. New Frontiers missions are planetary science missions with a cap of approximately $850 million. New Frontiers missions include the Juno mission to Jupiter, the Osiris-REx asteroid sample-return missions, and the aforementioned New Horizons mission to Pluto.

Are Drylanders The Minority On Habitable Worlds?

Artist's depiction of a waterworld. A new study suggests that Earth is in a minority when it comes to planets, and that most habitable planets may be greater than 90% ocean. Credit: David A. Aguilar (CfA)

If we want to send spacecraft to exoplanets to search for life, we better get good at building submarines.

A new study by Dr. Fergus Simpson, of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona, shows that our assumptions about exo-planets may be wrong. We kind of assume that exoplanets will have land masses, even though we don’t know that. Dr. Simpson’s study suggests that we can expect lots of oceans on the habitable worlds that we might discover. In fact, ocean coverage of 90% may be the norm.

At the heart of this study is something called ‘Bayesian Statistics’, or ‘Bayesian Probability.’

Normally, we give something a probability of occurring—in this case a habitable world with land masses—based on our data. And we’re more confident in our prediction if we have more data. So if we find 10 exoplanets, and 7 of them have significant land masses, we think there’s a 70% chance that future exoplanets will have significant land masses. If we find 100 exoplanets, and 70 of them have significant land masses, then we’re even more confident in our 70% prediction.

But the problem is, even though we’ve discovered lots of exoplanets, we don’t know if they have land masses or not. We kind of assume they will, even though the masses of those planets is lower than we expect. This is where the Bayesian methods used in this study come in. They replace evidence with logic, sort of.

In Bayesian logic, probability is assigned to something based on the state of our knowledge and on reasonable expectations. In this case, is it reasonable to expect that habitable exoplanets will have significant landmasses in the same way that Earth does? Based on our current knowledge, it isn’t a reasonable expectation.

According to Dr. Simpson, the anthropic principle comes into play here. We just assume that Earth is some kind of standard for habitable worlds. But, as the study shows, that may not be the case.

“Based on the Earth’s ocean coverage of 71%, we find substantial evidence supporting the hypothesis that anthropic selection effects are at work.” – Dr. Fergus Simpson.

In fact, Earth may be a very finely balanced planet, where the amount of water is just right for there to be significant land masses. The size of the oceanic basins is in tune with the amount of water that Earth retains over time, which produces the continents that rise above the seas. Is there any reason to assume that other worlds will be as finely balanced?

Dr. Simpson says no, there isn’t. “A scenario in which the Earth holds less water than most other habitable planets would be consistent with results from simulations, and could help explain why some planets have been found to be a bit less dense than we expected.” says Simpson.

Simpson’s statistical model shows that oceans dominate other habitable worlds, with most of them being 90% water by surface area. In fact, Earth is very close to being a water world. The video shows what would happen to Earth’s continents if the amount of water increased. There is only a very narrow window in which Earth can have both large land masses, and large oceans.

Dr. Simpson suggests that the fine balance between land and water on Earth’s surface could be one reason we evolved here. This is based partly on his model, which shows that land masses will have larger deserts the smaller the oceans are. And deserts are not the most hospitable place for life, and neither are they biodiverse. Also, biodiversity on land is about 25 times greater than biodiversity in oceans, at least on Earth.

Simpson says that the fine balance between land mass and ocean coverage on Earth could be an important reason why we are here, and not somewhere else.

“Our understanding of the development of life may be far from complete, but it is not so dire that we must adhere to the conventional approximation that all habitable planets have an equal chance of hosting intelligent life,” Simpson concludes.

April 13, 2017April 28, 2017 by Evan Gough

NASA Bombshell: Key Ingredient For Life Discovered On Enceladus

Scientists recently determined that a certain strain of Earth bacteria could thrive under conditions found on Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

NASA has announced the discovery of hydrogen in the plumes on Enceladus. This is huge news, and Cassini scientists have looked forward to this day. What it means is that there is a potential source of energy for microbes in the oceans of Enceladus, and that energy from the Sun is not required to support life.

We’ve known about the plumes on Enceladus for a while now, and Cassini has even flown through those plumes to determine their content. But hydrogen was never discovered until now. What it means is that there is a geochemical source for hydrogen in Enceladus’ ocean, coming from the interaction between warm water and rocks.

“This is the closest we’ve come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment.” – Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA.

This is a capstone finding, according to NASA. As far as we know, life needs three things to exist: water, energy, and the right chemicals. We know it has the necessary chemicals, we know it has water, and we now know it has a source of energy.

On Earth, hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean floor provide the energy for a web of life reliant on those vents. Bacteria live there, forming the base of a food chain that can include tube worms, shrimp, and other life forms. This discovery points to the possibility that similar communities might exist in the sub-surface ocean of Enceladus.

“This is the closest we’ve come, so far, to identifying a place with some of the ingredients needed for a habitable environment,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at Headquarters in Washington.

Microbes in Enceladus’ ocean could use the hydrogen in a process called methanogenesis. They obtain energy by combining hydrogen with dissolved carbon dioxide in the water. This process produces a methane by-product. Methanogenesis is a bedrock process at the root of life here on Earth.

“Confirmation that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone in our search for habitable worlds beyond Earth,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

Hubble Confirms Plumes On Europa

NASA has also announced that the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the presence of plumes on another of our Solar System’s icy moons, Europa.

These plumes were first seen by the Hubble in 2014, but were never seen again. Since repeatability is key in science, those findings were put on the back burner. But in 2016, NASA announced today, Hubble spotted them again, in the same place. This is the same spot that the Galileo probe noticed a thermal hot spot.

We don’t know if Europa has hydrogen in its oceans, but it’s easy to see where this is going. NASA’s excitement is palpable.

What’s Next?

NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will visit Europa and determine the thickness of its ice layer, as well as the depth and salinity of its ocean. It will also analyze the atmosphere and the composition of the plumes. Europa Clipper will fill in a lot of gaps in our understanding.

Europa Clipper will be launched around 2022, but a mission to Enceladus will have to wait a little longer. One mission under consideration in NASA’s Discovery program is ELF, Enceladus Life Finder. ELF would fly through Enceladus’ plumes 8 or 10 times, taking more detailed samples of their content.

This enhanced-color Cassini view of southern latitudes on Enceladus features the bluish “tiger stripe” fractures that rip across the south polar region. These tiger stripes form over hydrothermal vents in the ocean, the source of Enceladus’ plumes. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

The discovery of hydrogen in the plumes of Enceladus is huge news any way you look at it. But that discovery begs the question: Are we doing it all wrong? Are we looking for life in the wrong places?

The search for life elsewhere in the Universe, so far, has mostly revolved around exoplanets. And then refining that search to identify exoplanets that are in the habitable zones of their stars. We’re searching for other Earths, basically.

But maybe we should be changing our focus. Maybe it’s the ice worlds, including icy exomoons, that are the most likely targets for our search. This new evidence from NASA’s Cassini mission, and from the Hubble Space Telescope, suggests that in our Solar System at least, they are the best place to search.

One Final Ingredient Needed?

There’s a fourth ingredient needed for life. Once there is water, energy, and the necessary chemicals, life needs time to get going. How much time, we’re not exactly certain. But this is where Enceladus and Europa are different.

Europa is about 4 billion years old, or so we think. That’s only half a billion years younger than Earth, and we think life started on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago. This hints that, if conditions on Europa are favorable, life has had a long time to get going. Of course, that doesn’t mean it has.

On the other hand, Enceladus is probably much younger. A study of the orbits of Saturn’s moons suggests that Enceladus may only be 100 million years old. If that’s true, it’s not very much time for life to get going.

The hydrogen discovery is huge news. There are still a lot of questions, of course, and lots to be debated. But confirming a source of energy on Enceladus builds the case for the same type of hydrothermal vent life that we see on Earth.

Now all we need is a mission to Enceladus.

March 9, 2017March 10, 2017 by Evan Gough

How Will NASA Find Life On Other Worlds?

For a long time, the idea of finding life on other worlds was just a science fiction dream. But in our modern times, the search for life is rapidly becoming a practical endeavour. Now, some minds at NASA are looking ahead to the search for life on other worlds, and figuring out how to search more effectively and efficiently. Their approach is centered around two things: nano-satellites and microfluidics.

Life is obvious on Earth. But it’s a different story for the other worlds in our Solar System. Mars is our main target right now, with the work that MSL Curiosity is doing. But Curiosity is investigating Mars to find out if conditions on that planet were ever favorable for life. A more exciting possibility is finding extant life on another world: that is, life that exists right now.

MSL Curiosity is busy investigating the surface of Mars, to see if that planet could have harbored life. Image: NASA/JPL/Cal-Tech

At the Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop, experts in Planetary Science and related disciplines gathered to present ideas about the next 50 years of exploration in the Solar System. A team led by Richard Quinn at the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) presented their ideas on the search for extant life in the next few decades.

Their work is based on the decadal survey “Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022.” That source confirms what most of us are already aware of: that our search for life should be focussed on Mars and the so-called “Ocean Worlds” of our Solar System like Enceladus and Europa. The question is, what will that search look like?

The North Polar Region of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus. Could there be an ocean world full of life under its frozen surface? Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Quinn and his team outlined two technologies that we could center our search around.

Nanosatellites

A nanosatellite is classified as something with a mass between 1-10 kg. They offer several advantages over larger designs.

Firstly, their small mass keeps the cost of launching them very low. In many cases, nanosatellites can be piggy-backed onto the launch of a larger payload, just to use up any excess capacity. Nanosatellites can be made cheaply, and multiples of them can be designed and built the same. This would allow a fleet of nanosatellites to be sent to the same destination.

Most of the discussion around the search for life centers around large craft or landers that land in one location, and have limited mobility. The Mars rovers are doing great work, but they can only investigate very specific locations. In a way, this creates kind of a sampling error. It’s difficult to generalize about the conditions for life on other worlds when we’ve only sampled a small handful of locations.

In 2010, NASA successfully deployed the nanosatellite NANO-Sail D from a larger, microsatellite. Image: NASA

On Earth, life is everywhere. But Earth is also the home to extremophiles, organisms that exist only in extreme, hard-to-reach locations. Think of thermal vents on the ocean floor, or deep dark caves. If that is the kind of life that exists on the target worlds in our Solar System, then there’s a strong possibility that we’ll need to sample many locations before we find them. That is something that is beyond the capabilities of our rovers. Nanosatellites could be part of the solution. A fleet of them investigating a world like Enceladus or Europa could speed up our search for extant life.

NASA has designed and built nanosatellites to perform a variety of tasks, like performing biology experiments, and testing advanced propulsion and communications technologies. In 2010 they successfully deployed a nanosatellite from a larger, microsatellite. If you expand on that idea, you can see how a small fleet of nanosatellites could be deployed at another world, after arriving there on another larger craft.

Microfluidics

Microfluidics deals with systems that manipulate very small amounts of fluid, usually on the sub-millimeter scale. The idea is to build microchips which handle very small sample sizes, and test them in-situ. NASA has done work with microfluidics to try to develop ways of monitoring astronauts’ health on long space voyages, where there is no access to a lab. Microfluidic chips can be manufactured which have only one or two functions, and produce only one or two results.

In terms of the search for extant life in our Solar System, microfluidics is a natural fit with nanosatellites. Replace the medical diagnostic capabilities of a microfluidic chip with a biomarker diagnostic, and you have a tiny device that can be mounted on a tiny satellite. Since functioning microfluidic chips can be as small as microprocessors, multiples of them could be mounted.

” Technical constraints will inevitably limit robotic missions that search for evidence of life to a few selected experiments.” – Richard.C.Quinn, et. al.

When combined with nanosatellites, microfluidics offers the possibility of the same few tests for life being repeated over and over in multiple locations. This is obviously very attractive when it comes to the search for life. The team behind the idea stresses that their approach would involve the search for simple building blocks, the complex biomolecules involved in basic biochemistry, and also the structures that cellular life requires in order to exist. Performing these tests in multiple locations would be a boon in the search.

Some of the technologies for the microfluidic search for life have already been developed. The team points out that several of them have already had successful demonstrations in micro-gravity missions like the GeneSat, the PharmaSat, and the SporeSat.

“The combination of microfluidic systems with chemical and biochemical sensors and sensor arrays offer some of the most promising approaches for extant life detection using small-payload platforms.” – Richard.C.Quinn, et. al.

Putting It All Together

We’re a ways away from a mission to Europa or Enceladus. But this paper was about the future vision of the search for extant life. It’s never too soon to start thinking about that.

There are some obvious obstacles to using nanosatellites to search for life on Enceladus or Europa. Those worlds are frozen, and it’s the oceans under those thick ice caps that we need to investigate. Somehow, our tiny nanosatellites would need to get through that ice.

Also, the nanosatellites we have now are just that: satellites. They are designed to be in orbit around a body. How could they be transformed into tiny, ocean-going submersible explorers?
There’s no doubt that somebody, somewhere at NASA, is already thinking about that.

The over-arching vision of a fleet of small craft, each with the ability to repeat basic experiments searching for life in multiple locations, is a sound one. As for how it actually turns out, we’ll have to wait and see.

February 7, 2017February 15, 2017 by Evan Gough

Cassini Images Of Enceladus Highlight Possible Cradle For Life

Saturn's moon Enceladus, in all its glory. Captured by the Cassini probe. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

During its long mission to Saturn, the Cassini spacecraft has given us image after spectacular image of Saturn, its rings, and Saturn’s moons. The images of Saturn’s moon Enceladus are of particular interest when it comes to the search for life.

At first glance, Enceladus appears similar to other icy moons in our Solar System. But Cassini has shown us that Enceladus could be a cradle for extra-terrestrial life.

Our search for life in the Solar System is centred on the presence of liquid water. Maybe we don’t know for sure if liquid H2O is required for life. But the Solar System is huge, and the effort required to explore it is immense. So starting our search for life with the search for liquid water is wise. And in the search for liquid water, Enceladus is a tantalizing target.

Cassini captured this image of Enceladus with Saturn’s rings. The vapor plumes are slightly visible at the south polar region (bottom of image). Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Though Enceladus looks every bit like a frozen, lifeless world on its surface, it’s what lies beneath its frigid crust that is exciting. Enceladus appears to have a subsurface ocean, at least in it’s south polar region. And that ocean may be up to 10 km. deep.

Before we dive into that, (sorry), here are a few basic facts about Enceladus:

Enceladus is Saturn’s sixth largest moon
Enceladus is about 500 km in diameter (Earth’s Moon is 3,474 km in diameter)
Enceladus was discovered in 1789 by William Herschel
Enceladus is one of the most reflective objects in our Solar System, due to its icy surface

In 2005, Cassini first spied plumes of frozen water vapor erupting from the southern polar region. Called cryovolcanoes, subsequent study of them determined that they are the likely source of Saturn’s E Ring. The existence of these plumes led scientists to suspect that their source was a sub-surface ocean under Enceladus’ ice crust.

This close up image of Enceladus clearly shows multiple plumes erupting into space. Image: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Finding plumes of water erupting from a moon is one thing, but it’s not just water. It’s salt water. Further study showed that the plumes also contained simple organic compounds. This advanced the idea that Enceladus could harbor life.

This image of Enceladus shows the features known as “Tiger stripes”. They are the source of the vapor plumes that erupt from the surface. Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

The geysers aren’t the only evidence for a sub-surface ocean on Enceladus. The southern polar region has a smooth surface, unlike the rest of the moon which is marked with craters. Something must have smoothed that surface, since it is next to impossible that the south polar region would be free from impact craters.

In 2005, Cassini detected a warm region in the south, much warmer than could be caused by solar radiation. The only conclusion is that Enceladus has a source of internal heating. That internal heat would create enough geologic activity to erase impact craters.

So now, two conditions for the existence of life have been met: liquid water, and heat.

In 2005, data from Cassini showed that the so-called “Tiger Stripe” features on Enceladus’ south pole region are warm spots. Image:NASA/JPL/GSFC/SwRI/SSI

The source of the heat on Enceladus was the next question facing scientists. That question is far from settled, and there could be several sources of heat operating together. Among all the possible sources for the heat, two are most intriguing when it comes to the search for life: tidal heating, and radioactive heating.

Tidal heating is a result of rotational and orbital forces. In Enceladus’ case, these forces cause friction which is dissipated as heat. This heat keeps the sub-surface ocean in liquid form, but doesn’t prevent the surface from freezing solid.

Radioactive heating is caused by the decay of radioactive isotopes. If Enceladus started out as a rocky body, and if it contained enough short-lived isotopes, then an enormous amount of heat would be produced for several million years. That action would create a rocky core surrounded by ice.

Then, if enough long-lived radioactive isotopes were present, they would continue producing heat for a much longer period of time. However, radioactive heating isn’t enough on its own. There would have to be tidal heating also.

Gravity measurements by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and Deep Space Network suggest that Saturn’s moon Enceladus, which has jets of water vapor and ice gushing from its south pole, also harbors a large interior ocean beneath an ice shell, as this illustration depicts.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

More evidence for a large, sub-surface ocean came in 2014. Cassini and the Deep Space Network provided gravitometric measurements showing that the ocean is there. Those measurements showed that there is likely a regional, if not global, ocean some 10 km thick. Measurements also showed that the ocean is under an ice layer 30 to 40 km thick.

This close up image of Enceladus show the variability of its icy features. The dark spots were originally called “Dalmatian” terrain when first imaged in 2005. There exact nature remained a mystery until ten years later, when Cassini flybys showed that they are actually blocks of bedrock ice scattered along a ridge. The blocks range in size from tens to hundreds of meters. Image: NASA/JPL/Cal-Tech.

The discovery of a warm, salty ocean containing organic molecules is very intriguing, and has expanded our idea of what the habitable zone might be in our Solar System, and in others. Enceladus is much too distant from the Sun to rely on solar energy to sustain life. If moons can provide their own heat through tidal heating or radioactive heating, then the habitable zone in any solar system wouldn’t be determined by proximity to the star or stars at the centre.

Cassini’s mission is nearing its end, and it won’t fly by Enceladus again. It’s told us all it can about Enceladus. It’s up to future missions to expand our understanding of Enceladus.

Numerous missions have been talked about, including two that suggest flying through the plumes and sampling them. One proposal has a sample of the plumes being returned to Earth for study. Landing on Enceladus and somehow drilling through the ice remains a far-off idea better left to science fiction, at least for now.

Whether or not Enceladus can or does harbor life is a question that won’t be answered for a long time. In fact, not all scientists agree that there is a liquid ocean there at all. But whether it does or doesn’t harbor life, Cassini has allowed us to enjoy the tantalizing beauty of that distant object.

Enceladus. Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA

November 18, 2016November 26, 2016 by Evan Gough

Mars Has Features That Look Very Similar To Life Bearing Hot Springs On Earth

Rock formations near hot spring discharge channels at El Tatio, Chile, shown in this image, bear a striking resemblance to formations in the Gusev Crater on Mars. Image: Steven W. Ruff, Jack D. Farmer

A type of rock formation found on Mars may be some of the best evidence yet for life on that planet, according to a new study at Nature.com. The formations in question are in the Gusev Crater. When Spirit examined the spectra of the formations, scientists found that they closely match those of formations at El Tatio in Northern Chile.

The significance of that match? The El Tatio formations were produced by a combination of living and non-living processes.

The Gusev Crater geo-located on a map of Mars. Image: Wikimedia Labs

The Gusev Crater is a large crater that formed 3 to 4 billion years ago. It’s an old crater lake bed, with sediments up to 3,000 feet thick. Gusev also has exposed rock formations which show evidence of layering. A system of water channels called Ma’adim Vallis flows into Gusev, which could account for the deep sediments.

When it comes to evidence for the existence of life on Mars, and on early Earth, researchers often focus on hydrothermal spring deposits. These deposits can capture and preserve the biosignatures of early life. You can’t find evidence of ancient life just anywhere because geologic processes erase it. This is why El Tatio has received so much attention.

It’s also why formations at Gusev have received attention. They appear to have a hydrothermal origin as well. Their relation to the rocks around them support their hydrothermal origin.

El Tatio in Chile is a hard-to-find combination of extremely high UV, low rainfall, high annual evaporation rate, and high elevation. This makes it an excellent analog for Mars.

The Mars-like conditions at El Tatio make it rather unique on Earth, and that uniqueness is reflected in the rock deposits and structures that it produces. The most unique ones may be the biomediated silica structures that resemble the structures in Gusev. This resemblance suggest that they have the same causes: hydrothermal vents and biofilms.

Silica structures at the Gusev Crater (left) closely resemble the silica structures at El Tatio (right.) Image: Steven W. Ruff, Jack D. Farmer

Biomediated Structures?

The rock structures at El Tatio are typically covered with very shallow water that supports bio-films and mats comprised of different diatoms and cyanobacteria. The size and shape of the structures varies, probably according to the variable depth, flow velocity, and flow direction of the water. The same variations are present at Gusev on Mars. This begs the question, “Could the structures at Gusev also have a biological cause?”

Microscopic images of structures at El Tatio. B, in the upper right, shows the biofilm community partly responsible for the formation of the structures. The surface biofilm community includes silica-encrusted microbial filaments and sheaths, and spindle-shaped diatoms (white arrows.) Image: Steven W. Ruff, Jack D. Farmer.

Luckily, we have a rover on Mars that can probe the Gusev formations more deeply. Spirit used its Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) to obtain spectra of the Gusev formations. These spectra confirmed the similarity to the terrestrial formations at El Tatio.

Spirit was helpful in other ways. The rover has one inoperable wheel, which drags across the Martian surface, disrupting and overturning rock structures. Spirit was intentionally driven across the Gusev formations, in order to overturn and expose fragments. Then, Spirit’s Microscopic Imager was trained on those fragments.

(A) shows the wheel marks left by Spirit. The darker ones on the right are from the inoperable wheel. (B) is a closeup of the box in (A). (C) shows some of the rover tracks and features in Gusev. (D) shows two whitish rocks, intentionally overturned by Spirit's busted wheel. Image: NASA/JPL/Spirit PanCam. — (A) shows the wheel marks left by Spirit. The darker ones on the right are from the inoperable wheel. (B) is a closeup of the box in (A). (C) shows some of the rover tracks and features in Gusev. (D) shows two whitish rocks, intentionally overturned by Spirit’s busted wheel. Image: NASA/JPL/Spirit PanCam.

MM scale close-up images of the Martian rocks, on the left, show many similarities with the El Tatio rocks, right. Images: Steven W. Ruff, Jack D. Farmer, NASA/JPL.

Unfortunately, Spirit lacks the instrumentation to look deeply into the internal microscale features of the Martian rocks. If Spirit could do that, we would be much more certain that the Martian rocks were partly biogenic in origin. All of the surrounding factors suggest that they do, but that’s not enough to come to that conclusion.

This study presents more compelling evidence that there was indeed life on Mars at some point. But it’s not conclusive.

October 12, 2016October 13, 2016 by Ken Kremer

Opportunity Blazes Through 4500 Sunsets on Mars and Gullies are Yet to Come!

NASA’s Opportunity explores Spirit Mound after descending down Marathon Valley and looks out across the floor of vast Endeavour crater. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 4505 (25 Sept 2016) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

The longest living Martian rover ever – Opportunity – has just surpassed another unfathomable milestone – 4500 Sols (or days) exploring the Red Planet !! That’s 50 times beyond her “warrantied” life expectancy of merely 90 Sols.

And as we are fond of reporting – the best is yet to come. After experiencing 4500 Martian sunsets, Opportunity has been granted another mission extension and she is being targeted to drive to an ancient gully where life giving liquid water almost certainly once flowed on our solar systems most Earth-like planet.

See Opportunity’s current location around ‘Spirit Mound” – illustrated in our new photo mosaic panoramas above and below.

NASA’s Opportunity rover scans ahead to Spirit Mound and vast Endeavour crater as she celebrates 4500 sols on the Red Planet after descending down Marathon Valley. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 4500 (20 Sept 2016) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

After a scorching ‘6 minutes of Terror’ plummet through the thin Martian atmosphere, Opportunity bounced to an airbag cushioned landing on the plains of Meridiani Planum on January 24, 2004 – nearly 13 years ago!

Opportunity was launched on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on July 7, 2003.

“We have now exceeded the prime-mission duration by a factor of 50,” noted Opportunity Project Manager John Callas of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

“Milestones like this are reminders of the historic achievements made possible by the dedicated people entrusted to build and operate this national asset for exploring Mars.”

The newest 2 year extended mission phase just began on Oct. 1 as the rover was stationed at the western rim of Endeavour crater at the bottom of Marathon Valley at a spot called “Bitterroot Valley.”

And at this moment, as Opportunity reached and surpassed the 4500 Sol milestone, she is investing an majestic spot dubbed “Spirit Mound” – and named after her twin sister “Spirit” – who landed 3 weeks earlier!

This scene from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows "Spirit Mound" overlooking the floor of Endeavour Crater. The mound stands near the eastern end of "Bitterroot Valley" on the western rim of the crater, and this view faces eastward. The component images for this mosaic were taken on Sept. 21, 2016, during the 4,501st Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity's work on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ. — This scene from the panoramic camera (Pancam) on NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows “Spirit Mound” overlooking the floor of Endeavour Crater. The mound stands near the eastern end of “Bitterroot Valley” on the western rim of the crater, and this view faces eastward. The component images for this mosaic were taken on Sept. 21, 2016, during the 4,501st Martian day, or sol, of Opportunity’s work on Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Arizona State Univ.

Endeavour crater spans some 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter. Opportunity has been exploring Endeavour since arriving at the humongous crater in 2011.

Endeavour crater was formed when it was carved out of the Red Planet by a huge meteor impact billions of years ago.

But now for the first time she will explore the craters interior, after spending 5 years investigating the exterior and climbing to a summit on the rim and spending several year exploring the top before finally descending down the Marathon Valley feature to investigate clay minerals formed in water.

“The longest-active rover on Mars also will, for the first time, visit the interior of the crater it has worked beside for the last five years,” said NASA officials.

Marathon Valley measures about 300 yards or meters long. It cuts downhill through the west rim of Endeavour crater from west to east – the same direction in which Opportunity drove downhill from a mountain summit area atop the crater rim. See our route map below showing the context of the rovers over dozen year long traverse spanning more than the 26 mile distance of a Marathon runners race.

Opportunity is now being targeted to explore a gully carved out by water.

“We are confident this is a fluid-carved gully, and that water was involved,” said Opportunity Principal Investigator Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

“Fluid-carved gullies on Mars have been seen from orbit since the 1970s, but none had been examined up close on the surface before. One of the three main objectives of our new mission extension is to investigate this gully. We hope to learn whether the fluid was a debris flow, with lots of rubble lubricated by water, or a flow with mostly water and less other material.”

Furthermore, in what’s a very exciting announcement the team “intends to drive Opportunity down the full length of the gully, onto the crater floor” – if the rover continues to function well during the two year extended mission which will have to include enduring her 8th frigid Martian winter in 2017.

And as is always the case, scientists will compare these interior crater rocks to those on the exterior for clues into the evolution, environmental and climatic history of Mars over billions of years.

“We may find that the sulfate-rich rocks we’ve seen outside the crater are not the same inside,” Squyres said. “We believe these sulfate-rich rocks formed from a water-related process, and water flows downhill. The watery environment deep inside the crater may have been different from outside on the plain — maybe different timing, maybe different chemistry.”

NASA’s Opportunity rover discovers a beautiful Martian dust devil moving across the floor of Endeavour crater as wheel tracks show robots path today exploring the steepest ever slopes of the 13 year long mission, in search of water altered minerals at Knudsen Ridge inside Marathon Valley on 1 April 2016. This navcam camera photo mosaic was assembled from raw images taken on Sol 4332 (1 April 2016) and colorized. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell/ Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com/Marco Di Lorenzo

As of today, Sol 4522, Oct 12, 2016, Opportunity has taken over 214,400 images and traversed over 26.99 miles (43.44 kilometers) – more than a marathon.

The power output from solar array energy production is currently 472 watt-hours, before heading into another southern hemisphere Martian winter in 2017.

Meanwhile Opportunity’s younger sister rover Curiosity traverses and drills into the basal layers at the base of Mount Sharp.

Stay tuned here for Ken’s continuing Earth and planetary science and human spaceflight news.

Ken Kremer