How life could be detected on Enceladus

The mystery of whether microbial alien life exists on Enceladus could be solved by a spacecraft orbiting Saturn’s moon, according to a new study led by University of Arizona researchers. In a paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, the researchers show how a hypothetical space mission could provide definitive answers.

When Enceladus was first surveyed by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1980, it looked like a small, unexciting “snowball” in the sky. Later, between 2005 and 2017, NASA’s C...