LIpid BIOmarkers in Planetary ANalog Environments – LIBIOPANE

The search for organic molecules as traces of potential habitability and prebiotic chemistry is one of the main goals of current and future flight missions to Mars as well as the ocean worlds of the outer solar system (Europa, Enceladus, Titan, etc.). The objective of the LIBIOPANE project is to help guide these missions by evaluating the environments and mineralogies that are the most favorable to the preservation and detection of organic molecules, specifically lipid (bio)markers. Lipids are essential biological components which can be preserved on Earth in billion years old rocks. Lipid biomarkers are powerful tools because they can provide information about the paleoenvironment where they were formed. Therefore, they are ideal molecular biosignatures to search for life elsewhere, if it occurred, such as on Mars and on the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn for which flight missions are currently being developed (e.g., Dragonfly for Titan). Lipids formed abiotically are also interesting to study because they can lend precious insights on the environmental conditions and minerals that favored both their formation and the complexification of organic molecules towards a potential prebiotic chemistry. The LIBIOPANE project is comprised of four tasks: (1) collection, synthesis and characterization of planetary analog samples; (2) investigation of the preservation potential of lipid biomarkers in the samples; (3) evaluation of the capability of current flight-instruments (e.g., pyrolyzer-GCMS) to detect lipids; (4) optimization of flight-analyses for the detection of lipids. The LIBIOPANE Project proposes a novel approach combining laboratory and simulated in situ data to guide flight missions through a better understanding of the source(s) (exogenous or endogenous) and origin(s) (prebiotic, biotic or abiotic) of the molecules detected in the solar system, contributing overall to a better understanding of the conditions of emergence of life on Earth.