Is there life on one of Saturn’s moons? Scientists plan a mission to find out

Maps of Saturn’s moon Enceladus: working with image data from Nasa’s Cassini mission, researchers found that Saturn’s moon Enceladus may have tipped over, reorienting itself. These maps look towards its southern hemisphere. Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute/Cornell University

It is a tiny world, a mere 310 miles in diameter, and was considered until recently to be one of the least interesting moons in the solar system. But Enceladus, one of 146 moons that orbit Saturn, has become a hot astronomical attraction – scientists have discovered that it offers one of the best prospects of finding life on another world in our solar system.

The European Space Agency (Esa) has announced it has begun planning a mission to take a robot probe across a billion miles of space to investigate.