Is there Life Elsewhere in the
Solar System?

 
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This question has interested people for millennia.  Now though, while we cannot confirm the presence of life on other planets in the Solar System, we do have a good idea of which places in the Solar System could support life and what that life may be like if it is there. Another question you may be asking is why are some places potential habitats for life while others are not?  Let us take a journey through the Solar System and try and answer those questions by looking at all the major planets and moons.

One thing is certain no advanced life or intelligent life, such as ourselves, exists off Earth in the Solar System.  Current knowledge suggests that extraterrestrial Solar System life would most likely be microbial and single-celled in nature - similar to bacteria, nano-bacteria or archaea.  They will almost certainly be some sort of extremophile.

Off all the places in the Solar System that may support life, Mars and Jupiter's moon  Europa may eventually confirm without doubt, that life exists or used to exist elsewhere than planet Earth.  While Mars may reveal the expected microbes, Europa holds the exciting possibility that more developed life forms may exist there...

But these two bodies are not the only targets we should be looking for life in the Solar System.  Other places, such as Saturn's moon Titan, may be able to tell us about the chemistry of life, even if living organisms do not exist there.    Callisto, another of Jupiter's moons, has recently been surveyed by the Galileo spacecraft.  It too may hide secrets that life scientists will be interested to investigate further.
 
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ActivityCall up First Contact - Design a spacecraft for a life detection mission

 
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