Scientists aim to launch Earth microbes at Enceladus, Saturn’s ice-covered moon, in a 2025 planetary experiment. This bizarre plan could make Enceladus the first celestial body deliberately inoculated with terrestrial life, causing both awe and alarm among astrobiologists.

The proposal involves sending living bacteria across 790 million miles to test survival in Enceladus’s frozen plumes. Critics call this “cosmic contamination,” while some researchers compare it to gardening on interstellar ice. The result: Saturn’s moon may soon host Earth’s tiniest invaders.

Enceladus’s plumes erupt salty water 800 kilometers into space—potentially a microbial superhighway if Earth life lands there.