Conditions For Life

Are there modern habitats elsewhere in the solar system with necessary conditions, organic matter, water, energy, and nutrients to sustain life?
Do organisms live there now?

By detecting amines, carboxylic acids, and PAHs, the EOA will reveal the concentrations of key groups of molecules that provide the organic matter, building blocks, and nutrients necessary to create molecular habitats conducive to life.

The EOA also provides a molecular probe for potential extinct or extant life by addressing three pertinent questions:

    1. Measuring distribution of organic molecule complexity
      →       do life processes focus organic molecule distributions?
    2. Measuring chirality of amino acids/asymmetrically substituted carbon species
      →       do life processes select one chiral population over another?
    3. Measuring fatty acid chain length distribution
      →       have life processes shaped the synthesis of carboxylic acids?

These probes explore how life processes produce non-random molecular distributions.