Title: Life on other planets | Feature | Chemistry World
Headings: Life – but not as we know it
Life – but not as we know it
Europa
Enceladus
We found water vapour, a salty reservoir and organics from Enceladus’s polar jets
Titan
The chemistry gets very complicated very quickly at Titan
Organic matter is constantly falling out of the atmosphere
Beyond our solar system
Topics

Content: It had an abundance of the chemical building blocks, liquid water on its surface and an energy source (volcanic activity) to power the chemical reactions that make life possible (on Earth that energy source is the sun). Today, the inhospitable surface of Mars is thought to be unsuitable for life, but the possibility of life existing deep beneath its frozen surface hasn’t been ruled out. To date though, no evidence of life – ancient or otherwise – has been found. Mars being habitable, it turns out, doesn’t mean it actually has a habitat. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
Mars has all the ingredients for life – water, chemicals and energy – but no signs of living things yet
The search for Martian life is ongoing, with a further three missions to Mars planned to launch over the next few years. Longer-term, a number of space agencies are also aiming to collect samples from Mars and return them to Earth for more in-depth analysis. And the search for signs of extraterrestrial life is stretching to the depths of our solar system and beyond. Europa
The gas giant Jupiter, the next planet beyond Mars in the solar system, is inhospitable to life in any currently imaginable form. But its icy moons – especially Europa – have potential.