Exploration of the Solar System’s Ocean Worlds

  • Feb. 21, 2018, 4:00 pm US/Central
  • Jonathan Lunine, Cornell University
  • Alexander Romanenko
  • Video

Ocean worlds is the label given to objects in the solar system that host stable, globe-girdling bodies of liquid water—“oceans”—on or beneath their surfaces. The Galileo orbiter at Jupiter and Cassini at Saturn discovered subsurface water oceans on Europa, Enceladus and Titan, and surface methane seas on the last of these. What we know of these bodies of liquid, what are the prospects for life there and how do we explore them are the topics of this talk.

 

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