Biology
Scientific paper
Mar 2011
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011jcos...13.3890b&link_type=abstract
Journal of Cosmology, Vol. 13, p. 3790-3799
Biology
Astrobiology, Habitable Zone, Habitable Niche, Life, Europa, Titan, Enceladus
Scientific paper
Astrobiology today has a strong anticipatory focus, and efforts are concentrated on determining the factors behind the potential presence, type, and distribution of life in our solar system and beyond. The critical requirements for life: a liquid solvent, and electron acceptors and donors for metabolism, guide the search, and is a central concept to the location and extent of circumstellar habitable zones. For our own solar system, however, the search can be widened beyond this narrow band of 'earth-like' conditions, and our increasing knowledge of the capabilities of life, as well as higher resolution imaging and analysis of solar system bodies, warrants the application of a more expansive habitable niche approach. The Saturnian and Jovian satellite systems are ideal for the application of this concept, and are here used to demonstrate how a collection of system characteristics may be used to assess the potential for individual bodies to harbour life. Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede in the Jovian system, and Enceladus, Titan, Hyperion, Iapetus, and Hyperion in the Saturnian system all possess characters that could make them conducive to the origin or maintenance of life upon or within them. The possibility of some of these bodies containing extraterrestrial life is reflected in future explorative missions.
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