Ocean Worlds: Europa, Enceladus and Beyond

Another aspect of my work focuses on ice-water interactions on planetary bodies called “Ocean Worlds”. Ocean Worlds are found throughout the Solar System (and likely exist outside of our Solar System!). By comparison, Earth is a fairly dry place when compared against these planetary bodies.

Liquid water is essential to life as we know it. However, most planets and moons of astrobiological relevance exhibit surface temperatures well below freezing. There is a higher likelihood that life is present in warmer, deeper underlying oceans (e.g. Europa, moon of Jupiter). Thus it is critical to understand the physics of material transfer between subsurface water and ice/rocky-ice surfaces.

Europa, a moon of Jupiter, captured by the Galileo spacecraft in 1996. The Europa Clipper Mission will be returning to this moon in the early 2030s! Image credit: NASA/JPL/DLR