Planetary scientists suggest NASA to look into Saturn's moon in search for life in outer space, and other missions to Mars and Uranus according to decadal survey.

Exploration of space has answered many questions that have fulfilled human curiosity, one of the unanswered questions is, "Is there life out there", to fund the answer to that US planetary scientists suggest looking into Saturn’s moon Enceladus for that and missions to  Uranus, Mars and also Venus for space exploration.

Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Planetary scientists suggest that NASA should look into sending exploration missions in the next decade to “identify the key scientific questions that are the most important to pursue” says Robin Canup after the release of the decadal survey of planetary science and astrobiology, which covers 2023 to 2032.

A mission to Enceladus would be great to understand the origins of life in space, and a mission to Uranus would be to help us understand worlds beyond our solar system.

The mission to Uranus would serve as a deeper look into the ice giants, the most common type of planets in the universe. This mission would be “Transformative” as said by Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, “We’re sure there’s going to be fantastic discoveries”. This mission could be launched by 2032, which after its arrival would send a probe into Uranus’s atmosphere to sample its composition.

Credit: NASA/CXO/University College London/W

The last time we had a look at the ice giants was back when Voyager 2 flew by, in the 1980s.

Another mission in the survey is to send a sample-return mission to Mars, which would not just look for signs of life in the ice of Mars but also look for atmospheric signatures.

Then the other important mission to Enceladus, priority of the mission would be to send an orbilander to Saturn’s moon, a moon with liquid water, the mission set out to be launched in the early 2030s would arrive the moon by 2050s, and spend some time orbiting Enceladus, to sample the geysers of water, then it would land on the surface to proceed its mission.