Mars dominates the search for life beyond Earth, but a growing number of scientists believe our efforts should be directed towards a world that, on the face it, seems a most unlikely candidate for extraterrestrial life – Enceladus. 

Above: Saturn’s sixth-largest moon, Enceladus, is tiny (measuring just 500km across) and is more than 1.4 billion km away from the Sun – both facts that would seem to count against it as a potential habit for life. This image was taken Nasa's Saturn probe, Cassini. Enceladus is in the foreground with Saturn’s rings behind it and looming in the distance is Saturn’s largest moon, Titan

For life (as we know it) to evolve and survive, it requires three essential ingredients – water, energy and organic chemicals. But how can a tiny frozen moon so far from the Sun possibly possess any of these ingredients?

In ancient times, superstitious civilisations built colossal structures to pay homage to the Sun gods – these temples were designed to assuage the capricious deity through worship and (sometimes) human sacrifice. Fast forward a few millennia and new temples are being built to tame the power of Helios once more but, instead of seeking religious power, these new Sun temples are seeking a far more tangible form of power: electricity.

Two of the most impressive of this new breed of Sun temple are currently under construction in the Mojave desert region of Arizona.

The Enviromission Solar Tower is giant by anyone's standards. When completed in 2015, the facility will boast a central tower 800 metres high that will instantly become one of tallest manmade structures on the planet (second only to the Burj Khalifa in Dubai).

In this final part of our look at the British space industry, we turn our eyes to the future.

This series was designed to celebrate 50 years of Britain in Space and our (often under-celebrated) achievements in space science, engineering and technology.

Here are just some of the high-tech pies (jammed-packed with British fingers) that will be cruising the solar system in the name of science and discovery in the years to come. Today, we are a world-leader in space science... let’s just make sure that doesn’t change shall we?

[Click graphic mahoosify]