Now that your group has familiarized itself with your home planet Earth, you must virtually voyage out into the solar system to consider where else life could develop. Each group member should select one of the following pairs of solar system bodies to research. 1: Titan and Mercury 2: Europa and Saturn 3: Mars and Io 4: Venus and Comets 5: Enceladus and Luna Bear in mind that all of these bodies are very different from Earth, and so if there is life on any of them, it will almost certainly be very different from life as we know it on Earth. Thus, don’t be afraid to think outside the box in your consideration of your possible targets. Just because a planet or moon is the most similar to Earth in some respect doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the best target. Remember, your job is not to decide which of these bodies could possibly have life. Every one of them could have life. Your job is to decide which of them is the best target for a space mission searching for extraterrestrial life. A complete analysis of this question will include not only the probability of life existing, but also how easy or difficult it might be to find and how easy or difficult it would be to send a probe. NASA can only send one probe in the near future, so it has to count. Each person in your consulting team should spend one day researching the two solar system bodies he or she has selected. While researching, try to answer the following questions about each: 1: How is this body similar to or different from Earth in terms of its physical and chemical environments? Are there any environments that seem similar to extreme environments on Earth? 2: What are the challenges for survival on this body? What would make it difficult for life to survive? 3: What advantages does this body have for life? What things would aid in life’s development and survival? 4: Is the environment on this body compatible with the biological needs of life as we know it on Earth? Could it be compatible with other, alien biological processes? 5: What kind of life, if any, might exist on this body? What would it look like? How would it live? 6: How easy or difficult would it be to search for life on this body?

1. Titan and Mercury 2. Europa and Saturn 3. Mars and Io 4. Venus and Comets 5. Enceladus and Luna