Groundbreaking experiments studying the effects of impacts on organic compounds have revealed that future missions designed to search water plumes ejected by Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus for signs of alien life are viable.
Previously, mission planners feared that the impact of the tiny ice grains that make up these massive plumes would become too damaged by the impact with the collection trays, rendering any amino acids or other telltale signs of life unrecognizable. However, these new experiments, which included custom-built tools and techniques, show that organic compounds trapped inside these ice grains could survive these high-speed impacts intact.
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