Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI) Technology Development
Résumé
The Europan Molecular Indicators of Life Investigation (EMILI), funded under the ICEE-2 program, is designed to meet the scientific requirements of the Europa Lander's Organic Composition Analyzer, as well as the stringent resource and environmental tolerance constraints mandated by the Lander implementation. EMILI tightly couples two complementary analytical techniques, based on (i) liquid processing with capillary electrophoresis and (ii) pyrolysis/derivatization with gas chromatography, to robustly detect, structurally characterize, and quantify the broadest range of organics and other chemicals that may be present over widely-varying concentrations.