Q&A with Jonathan Lunine on Enceladus’ prospects for life

Scientists announced Thursday that measurements from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft detected hydrogen gas, a key energy source for microbial life, in a plume gushing from a vast liquid water ocean buried beneath the icy shell of Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

Anton Zeilinger first proposed the idea for a satellite-based quantum communications experiment to the European Space Agency in 2001, but officials did not forward with the idea. A decade-and-a-half later, the world-renowned physicist’s former student leads a Chinese project aimed at proving quantum teleportation and ultra-secure data links at global scale for the first time.

Carrying a $2.7 billion NASA mission to Mars, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket took off July 30 from Cape Canaveral and fired into a summer sky powered by four powerful solid rocket boosters and a kerosene-burning main engine.