Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI) for a Future Europa Lander Mission

• DOI: 10.3389/frspt.2021.760927
• Publication Date: 2022-01-13T05:12:03Z
• Authors: William B. Brinck...; Peter A. Willis; Antonio J. Ricco; Desmond A. Kaplan; Ryan M. Danell; Andrej Grubisic; Maria F. Mora; Jessica S. Creamer; Aaron Noell; Jennifer Stern; Cyril Szopa; Caroline Freissinet; Florian Kehl; Konstantin Zamuruyev; Conner Castle; Justin Spring; Tomas Drevinskas; Mircea Badescu; Mauro S. Ferreira...; Elizabeth A. Jara...; Friso van Amerom; Xiang Li; Marco Castillo; Jennifer Eigenbrode; Bethany Theiling; Richard C. Quinn; Fabien Stalport; Arnaud Buch; Kris Zacny
• Keywords: Scientific instrument; Characterization

The Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI) is an instrument concept being developed for the Europa Lander mission currently under study. EMILI will meet and exceed scientific technical/resource requirements organic composition analyzer identified as a core on Lander. tightly couples two complementary analytical techniques, based 1 ) liquid extraction processing with capillary electrophoresis 2 thermal chemical gas chromatography, to robustly detect, structurally characterize, quantify broadest range organics other chemicals over widely-varying concentrations. Dual analysis paths enable perform thorough characterization potential molecular biosignatures contextual compounds in collected surface samples. Here we present summary requirements, design, development status projected opportunities well life detection missions seeking situ .