Name: Cassini's Search For Life
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Is there life beyond Earth? The solar system's ocean worlds might be the most promising places to look.

Is there life beyond Earth? The solar system's ocean worlds might be the most promising pl

Cassini's Search For Life

Carlisle Companies

Viking

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<div class="rich-text">Is there life beyond Earth? The solar system's ocean worlds might be the most promising place to look.
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Is there life beyond Earth? The solar system's ocean worlds might be the most promising place to look.

<div class="rich-text">Is there life beyond Earth? The solar system's ocean worlds might be the most promising place to look.</div>

Cassini's Search For Life 

Space & Flight

<div class="rich-text">

 On Screen
 
 : Where is the best place to search for life beyond Earth?



 Caleb Scharf
 
 : There are ocean worlds in the outer solar system; places that contain interior bodies of liquid water.



 On Screen
 
 : Some ocean worlds are moons orbiting Jupiter or Saturn.



 Caleb Scharf
 
 : Moons like Europe, Titan and Enceladus contain a great ocean of water sealed beneath an icy crust.



 On Screen
 
 : Enceladus is one of Saturn’s many moons. The Cassini spacecraft flew close to the tiny, icy moon.



 Linda Spilker
 
 : We came within a hundred seventy-five kilometers of Enceladus’ surface and there the surprises just opened up this world.



 Carolyn Porco
 
 : It would be as if on Earth we found there was more heat coming from Antarctica than there was from the equator.



 Linda Spilker
 
 : We finally realized our images were showing us jets of material, geysers, coming out of the South Pole of Enceladus. It was jaw dropping. We just sat there in amazement.



 On Screen
 
 : The geysers shoot out from fissures in the ice fed by an ocean below.



 Carolyn Porco
 
 : We know that it’s a salty ocean with salinity comparable to out Earth’s ocean.



 On Screen
 
 : And Enceladus may have even more in common with Earth.



 Carolyn Porco
 
 : There is even evidence in the plume of material that we’ve sampled for hydrothermal activity at the sea floor of Enceladus. Enceladus checks all the boxes. It has organics, it has liquid water, it has biologically available nitrogen.



 On Screen
 
 : And there is an even bigger ocean beneath the ice of Jupiter’s moon, Europa.



 Alex Hayes
 
 : On Europa there is a factor of a few times more liquid water in its ocean than there is on the Earth’s oceans.



 Caleb Scharf
 
 : These ocean worlds, these ice covered places in the deep, dark solar system, could be habitats for life.



 On Screen
 
 : Nasa is planning to launch a spacecraft to Europa in the 2020s. What will it find?

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