Instruments aboard a NASA spacecraft scheduled to launch to Europe later this year could directly detect cellular material ejected from Jupiter’s icy moons, increasing the chances of finding life.

Europa is of scientific interest because researchers believe there is a vast saltwater ocean beneath its thick icy shell. It is also surrounded by an orbiting blanket of ice grains and dust, believed to be the remains of material kicked up after the meteorite struck.

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft was launched in October and is scheduled to arrive at its destination in 2030, flying close to the moon but not landing on it. Ten experiments will be carried out aimed at studying Europa’s internal structure, including its ocean chemistry and potential habitability for extraterrestrial life.

One of these is the SUrface Dust Analyzer (SUDA), a type of instrument known as a mass spectrometer. The mission will collect material ejected from the moon and reveal its chemical composition, including potential organic molecules and salts.

SUDA was not designed to look for signs of life in Europe, but now Frank Postberg and his colleagues at Germany’s Freie Universität Berlin, who are working on the device, have shown that it can detect fragments of cellular material, potentially providing evidence of modern life.

“If life on Europa follows the same principle of having membranes and DNA made from amino acids… [those chemicals] “It will be the deciding blow of my life,” he says.

“This is an interesting result because these ice grains hit the instruments in space at speeds of 4 to 6 kilometers per second,” say team members. Fabian Krenner at the University of Washington. “We showed that we can still identify cellular material.”

These extreme velocities cause particles to collide with SUDA with high kinetic energy, breaking large molecular structures into smaller component parts for analysis. To simulate this kinetic energy, the team shot water droplets with a laser. I put the following sample into water. Sphingopyxis alascensisa bacterium known to survive in frigid marine environments, making it a potential alternative to life on Europa.

When the laser hits the droplet, it breaks up into tiny droplets that hit the SUDA detector. The researchers discovered that they could distinguish between fragmented cellular material, including fatty acids and amino acids, which are abundant in cell membranes.

“We have now simulated the presence of cells inside a single ice grain without any pretreatment, which may be a valid case for what we see in Europe,” Klenner said. To tell. The next step, he says, is to repeat the experiment using different types of cell cultures.

Murti Gudipati He works on SUDA at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., but is not involved in the research. The results should reflect what could happen to the spacecraft, he said. Watch while on duty.

But the ability to clearly distinguish cellular material from other organic molecules and salts depends on the specific composition of the ice grains released from Europa, he says. If SUDA detects many other complex organic molecules and salts mixed in with the ice grains, it may be difficult for researchers to reliably detect cellular material, Gudipati says.

the current, NASA says When asked, “Europa Clipper is not a life-detecting mission. Its primary science goal is to determine whether there is a place beneath Europa’s surface where life could exist.” new scientist The agency was unable to respond prior to publication about whether the new research changes the mission’s goals.