By Dean Murray

Scientists are to send a spacecraft to hunt for aliens potentially hiding in our solar system.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced a mission to Saturn's moon Enceladus , as it has all the ingredients needed for lifeforms.

The agency set out the mission in its Voyage2050 long-term planning period announcement.

Enceladus is Saturn's sixth-largest moon, a 500 km-wide icy world famed for its south polar geysers spewing water plumes from a subsurface ocean.

ESA said: "No space agency has ever landed on Enceladus . And yet this moon has enormous potential for new science, particularly in the realm of habitability.

"It checks all the boxes when it comes to conditions for a ‘habitable environment’ to potentially support life as we know it."

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