The U.S. planetary science community’s decadal survey has been released, and Mars, Uranus and Saturn’s moon Enceladus are the top priorities.
The report also suggests that theMars mission, after the sample-return one, should look for signs of life in the ice as well as gaseous biosignatures in the atmosphere. That one is farther down the priority list, though.
A mission to Uranus “will be transformative,” says planetary scientist Amy Simon of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and a member of the decadal steering committee. “We’re sure there’s going to be fantastic discoveries.” Does Enceladus harbor life? A new planetary science report recommends planning a mission to the Saturnian moon to try to answer that question.This proposed spacecraft would arrive at the moon in the early 2050s, where it would first spend 1.5 years orbiting Enceladus, flying through its watery plumes to sample the liquid. Then the spacecraft would land on the surface for a two-year mission.
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