Hypervelocity impact mass spectrometry enables membrane phospholipid detection in ocean-world plumes
- 1Heyrovský Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences
- 2Institute of Chemical Technology, Leipzig University
Abstract
Saturn's ocean moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa expel subsurface material into space, enabling direct sampling of potentially habitable ocean environments without landing on their surfaces. Previous spacecraft analyses of plume ice grains revealed salts, simple organic compounds, and degraded macromolecular material, but no unambiguous molecular biosignatures. A fundamental question is whether diagnostic components of living cells can survive hypervelocity impact ionization during spacecraft flyby sampling. Here, we demonstrate that phospholipid membranes produce distinct and diagnostic negative-ion signatures following hypervelocity impacts of nanometer-sized ice particles at velocities up to 3.7 km s⁻¹. Using artificial vesicles composed of the phospholipid 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC), we obtained single-particle time-of-flight mass spectra containing characteristic phosphate-derived and fatty-acid fragment ions together with higher-mass species. Assignments were supported by collision-induced dissociation measurements using high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry. The persistence of these membrane-specific anions demonstrates that hypervelocity impact ionization preserves molecular signatures diagnostic of phospholipid bilayers, identifying cell membranes or their components as a detectable class of biosignatures for plume-sampling missions. Our results provide an experimental framework for interpreting complex negative-ion spectra from future ocean-world missions, including Europa Clipper and proposed Enceladus missions, and highlight the scientific value of high-resolution negative-ion impact mass spectrometry for the search for extraterrestrial life.
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BibTeX
@misc{spesyvyi2026hypervelocity,
title = {{Hypervelocity impact mass spectrometry enables membrane phospholipid detection in ocean-world plumes}},
author = {Anatolii Spesyvyi and Chen Wang and Ales Charvat and Heber Octavio Barragán Mayet and Marek Cebecauer and Agnieszka Olżyńska and Robert Jahn and Miroslav Polášek and Ján Žabka and Bernd Abel},
howpublished = {ChemRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.26434/chemrxiv.15009243/v1},
url = {https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15009243/v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Hypervelocity impact mass spectrometry enables membrane phospholipid detection in ocean-world plumes
AU - Anatolii Spesyvyi
AU - Chen Wang
AU - Ales Charvat
AU - Heber Octavio Barragán Mayet
AU - Marek Cebecauer
AU - Agnieszka Olżyńska
AU - Robert Jahn
AU - Miroslav Polášek
AU - Ján Žabka
AU - Bernd Abel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - ChemRxiv
DO - 10.26434/chemrxiv.15009243/v1
UR - https://chemrxiv.org/doi/full/10.26434/chemrxiv.15009243/v1
AB - Saturn's ocean moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa expel subsurface material into space, enabling direct sampling of potentially habitable ocean environments without landing on their surfaces. Previous spacecraft analyses of plume ice grains revealed salts, simple organic compounds, and degraded macromolecular material, but no unambiguous molecular biosignatures. A fundamental question is whether diagnostic components of living cells can survive hypervelocity impact ionization during spacecraft flyby sampling. Here, we demonstrate that phospholipid membranes produce distinct and diagnostic negative-ion signatures following hypervelocity impacts of nanometer-sized ice particles at velocities up to 3.7 km s⁻¹. Using artificial vesicles composed of the phospholipid 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC), we obtained single-particle time-of-flight mass spectra containing characteristic phosphate-derived and fatty-acid fragment ions together with higher-mass species. Assignments were supported by collision-induced dissociation measurements using high-resolution Orbitrap mass spectrometry. The persistence of these membrane-specific anions demonstrates that hypervelocity impact ionization preserves molecular signatures diagnostic of phospholipid bilayers, identifying cell membranes or their components as a detectable class of biosignatures for plume-sampling missions. Our results provide an experimental framework for interpreting complex negative-ion spectra from future ocean-world missions, including Europa Clipper and proposed Enceladus missions, and highlight the scientific value of high-resolution negative-ion impact mass spectrometry for the search for extraterrestrial life.
ER -