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In 2005 the Cassini spacecraft discovered that Enceladus, one of Saturn‘s icy moons, not only exhibits liquid water under it‘s ice shell, but also is a geologically active body. Since then enceladus became one of the most interesting scientific targets in our solar system, especially for the search of extraterrestrial life.
Geysers at Enceladus‘ south pole region proves that a salty ocean exists under it‘s icy crust, which is in contact with the heated rocky core beneath. Life on earth is supposed to have been orginated under similar conditions, adjacent to the “black smokers“ at the bottom of the sea. Primitive organic components among the geysers‘ ejections have already been detected.
The goal of the Enceladus Explorer initiative is to sample a water filled crack close to the surface of Enceladus with a melting probe in order to find traces of life. The detection of water filled cracks as well as the localisation of the melting probe may be possible using radar techniques. One of the major challenges is that the behaviour of very high frequency radio waves in ice is not only poorly understood, but also dependent on parameters such as composition, temperature or density which are largely unknown for Enceladus.
