Explore the fascinating possibility that comets could have delivered the building blocks of life to icy moons like Europa, Enceladus, and Titan, potentially harboring habitable environments deep beneath their surfaces.
The Vital Role of Impacts
Large impacts from comets, meteors, and asteroids have not occurred on Earth since historic times other than in a few major mass extinctions. Nonetheless, these same incidents could have been instrumental in triggering the onset of life on Earth.
This high frequency of formation and impacts during the Hadean caused widespread destruction to Earth, other inner solar system planets or embryos because developed atmosphere had not yet mastered. These collisions are believed to have helped bring water and the compounds of life to the inner solar system. Now researchers are testing the idea that those worlds — the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter known as ocean worlds — might have gone through similar processes.
Discovering the Astro-biological Potential of Ocean Worlds
With their thick icy crusts covering deep subsurface oceans of liquid water, the outer Solar System’s trio of nonplanetary moons — Europa, Enceladus and Titan — are seen as strong candidates in the search for potential life-sustaining habitats. The latest attempt to describe this early chemical landscape comes from a study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, specifically examining the events that likely followed puncturing impacts on these ocean worlds through time and what these may have meant for the development of surface and subsurface chemistry relevant to life’s beginnings.
The scientists, led by planetary scientist Shannon M. MacKenzie, wanted to explore if comets and other impactors could bring the ingredients required for life to these ice-covered moons of Jupiter. They studied the shock levels and meltwater volumes produced by different kinds of impacts, as well as the survival capability of critical organic compounds and even microbial life under those conditions.
Conclusion
The results of this study indicate that collisions affecting icy moons—such as Europa, Enceladus and Titan—may well have been responsible for bringing the necessary life-forming elements to these ‘ocean worlds’, thus making ocean worlds potential cradles for chemical complexity. Even though life may not exist on these moons now, the idea that prebiotic chemical pathways and habitable environments could be present miles beneath their surface provides some hope for future missions to explore these otherworldly bodies.
