ESRF scientist Anna Pakhomova gets ERC grant to study possible life in icy moons

The presence of water in its liquid state is thought to have driven Earth's prebiotic chemistry and is considered an essential element for the emergence of life. This is why icy moons harboring subsurface oceans are the most promising objects for extraterrestrial habitability. 

There are several current and future space missions that will remotely probe intriguing Jupiter and Saturn’s icy moons. The ESA’s JUICE mission will arrive in 2031, the NASA’s Europa Clipper in 2030 and DragonFly will be launched in 2028.

“Until today, however, the question of the existence of life has always been looked at from the Earth’s perspective, while in fact, the pressure in the oceans of the Earth and those in icy moons is very different”, explains Pakhomova. “We know of some volatile organics in those large oceans that could be biological precursors, but we do not have information on their chemical evolution at the right pressure-temperature-composition conditions in water”, she adds. “This is what we want to find out with OCEAN”, she adds.

ESRF’s role

Pakhomova’s team will use in situ X-ray diffraction on ID27, as well as neutron diffraction at the ILL. They will combine the results with additional techniques of Raman and infrared spectroscopy. “The ultimate idea is to come up with models of volatiles storage and transport for each icy moon and to create a spectral database of organic-bearing ocean proxies, so that we can assist in the interpretation of the data coming from the space missions”, she says.

Pakhomova’s ERC Consolidator grant is also a recognition to the new possibilities of research that the upgraded beamlines at the ESRF offer. “The ESRF has played a very important role in my application, as the experiments will strongly benefit from the capabilities of upgraded Extremely Brilliant Source”, concludes Pakhomova.

The project is hosted by Laboratory of Planetology and Geosciences (Nantes).

Text by Montserrat Capellas Espuny

Top image: Anna Pakhomova on beamline ID27. Credits: S. Candé.