The ultimate goal of Avant Garde is to find evidence of life on Europa, based on the underlying assumption that it is possible for life to thrive where there is water. Life on Earth is made possible only in an environment with very specific conditions: a delicate balance of select elements such as hydrogen, water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, and calcium. Collectively, these atoms essentially constitute the entire human body and may be the foundation of life on another planet. We seek to determine whether life elsewhere requires the same chemical composition, or if completely different atoms and chemical bonds are utilized. In doing such research, we may make discoveries about how the human body operates at a molecular level, possibly leading
