Can capture images of microbes at 1 micron, or a millionth of a meter

The microscope can show 3D detailed videos and focus automatically

It hopes to use it on a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in mid-2020s

Our first ever glimpse of alien life could be through a hologram.

This is according to Nasa, who has created a microscope capable of capturing images of extra-terrestrial microbes smaller than a micron, or 1 millionth of a meter.

The images are then fed into a computer which can create a realistic, holographic image of the alien beings back on Earth.

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Nasa has created a microscope capable of capturing images of microbes smaller than a micron (left). The black arrows in the image show the direction of movement. Researchers have already successfully tested the system, known as digital holographic microscopy (DHM), in Greenland (right)

Nasa is hoping the device – which is about the size of a piece of carryon luggage – will be flown on a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa in the mid-2020s.

'This was designed from the beginning to have a path to flight,' Chris Lindensmith of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Space.com.

Researchers have already successfully used the system, known as digital holographic microscopy (DHM), to detect microbes in Greenland's ice.

DHM is different from traditional microscopy in that the illuminating light is split into a sample beam and a reference beam.

Compiled from Nasa's Galileo spacecraft data, this surface image of Europa shows the blue-white terrains which suggest relatively pure water ice. Scientists are very interested in these features because they may offer a way to investigate the habitability of the moon's interior ocean

After the beam has illuminated the sample, it is combined with the reference and the data fed into a computer to create a hologram.

'The thing that makes it magic is, we don't have to do any focusing,' Lindensmith told Space.com. 'We can reconstruct any image in the object field.'

As well as its ability to capture 3D details and focus automatically, the DHM can record videos, which can let scientists know how microbes move.

The team tested the system in March in three sites near Nuuk in Greenland.

According to Space.com, the DHM was able to detect eukaryotes – tiny organisms with a membrane-bound nucleus – in every sample studied.

On future space missions, scientists are likely to release chemicals or change the temperature of the alien environment to any living cells to move.

THE 'MOST LIKELY PLACE IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM TO SUPPORT LIFE' Europa has very few craters on its surface Europa is the sixth closest moon to Jupiter and the smallest of the four Galilean satellites that belong to the planet. It was discovered by Galileo Galilei in January 1610 and is named after a Phoenician noblewoman in Greek mythology who was courted by Zeus and became the Queen of Crete. Europa orbits Jupiter in around three-and-a-half days with an orbital radius of 670,900km. It is slightly smaller than the Earth's moon, but at 3,100km in diameter it is the sixth largest moon and 15th largest object in the entire solar system. It is likely to have an outer layer of water, some 100km thick. The outer layer of the water is believed to be frozen with a liquid ocean underneath. It is one of the smoothest objects in the solar system with few craters on its surface, which is tectonically active and relatively young. Advertisement

For instance, samples could be heated or the lighting changed to 'wake up' any living organisms.

Jupiter's moon, Europa, has been described by Nasa as 'the most likely place in the solar system to harbour alien life'.

The agency has set aside $25 million to design probes that could reveal whether Europa is, in fact, habitable.

While it has yet to decide on a spacecraft. the mission it takes on is designed to characterise the extent of Europa's ocean and its relation to the deeper interior.

It will also look at the ice shell and determine global surface, compositions and chemistry, especially related to whether life could survive in that environment.

Previous scientific findings point to the existence of a liquid water ocean located under the moon's icy crust.

This ocean covers Europa entirely and contains more liquid water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

Although Europa and Jupiter's other moons have been visited by other spacecraft, they were each limited to a single distant flyby of these satellites.

Nasa's Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989 by the space shuttle, was the only mission to make repeated visits to Europa, passing close by the moon fewer than a dozen times.