Seminar: Steven Vance, September 18th 2023, 1PM ET
Geophysical investigations of habitability in icy ocean worlds
Dr. Steven Vance
Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Monday, September 18th 2023, 1PM ET / 5PM UTC
Livestream at: go.wisc.edu/50696e
Register at: go.wisc.edu/453g11
Abstract
Ocean worlds in our solar system generally have more liquid water than in all of Earth’s oceans. These ice-covered worlds are the most promising places to look for extant life in our solar system, and they are important as analogues to watery exoplanets. I will review our group’s work exploring the habitability of ocean worlds, combining geophysical forward models with laboratory thermodynamic and transport data. Our most recent work examines available electrical conductivity data for aqueous solutions relative to expected precisions of planned magnetic induction investigations of Europa by NASA’s Europa Clipper and ESA’s JUpiter ICy satellites Explorer (JUICE) missions. Planned laboratory experiments can address the identified lack of data and needed 1% precision in the 1 g/kg range of concentration.