Session programme

OPS – Outer Planet Systems

Programme group coordinators: Conor Nixon, Mauro Ciarniello, Alice Lucchetti

OPS1

This year, ESA’s JUICE mission will make its first (double) gravity assist this summer as it heads toward Jupiter and NASA’s Europa Clipper is preparing to launch in October 2024. Both missions will arrive at Jupiter in the early 2030s and are poised to provide unprecedented insights into the complex, enigmatic, and potentially habitable icy moons of the Jupiter system. This session aims to prepare for these missions, by bringing together scientists across the planetary community to discuss the latest advancements in our understanding of the Jupiter system, its icy moons in particular, and the implications for habitability, geology, and planetary science.

This session invites the community to share their latest icy Jovian science endeavors, with a particular focus on Europa and Ganymede. This includes 1) the geology and properties of their surface, 2) their interior structures, properties, and processes, especially of their subsurface oceans and icy shells; 3) the complex moon-magnetosphere interactions, in particular, the effects of radiation on their surface; 4) their exospheres and possible Europa plumes. We also want to feature highlights from the JUICE and Europa Clipper missions, including mission objectives, instrumentation, recent developments, and unique opportunities for dual-spacecraft synergistic observations.

Conveners: Ines Belgacem, Claire Vallat, Mathieu Choukroun, Sam Fayolle
OPS2

The Juno spacecraft continues its journey around Jupiter and its satellites making new important discoveries. Results from Juno at Jupiter have revealed numerous processes associated with the physics and chemistry of its interior, atmosphere, magnetosphere and its origin and evolution. Juno’s extended mission transformed the Jupiter-focused mission to a full system explorer. The extended mission runs through 2025 and includes numerous close and distant flybys of Io, Europa, and Ganymede along with an exploration of Jupiter’s enigmatic ring system. This session invites observational and modeling results related to Juno’s results on Jupiter and the comparison to other giant planets and exo-planetary systems. New results from Juno’s extended mission on Jupiter’s northern latitudes as well as the satellites and ring system are welcome.

Co-organized by TP/EXOA
Convener: Scott Bolton | Co-conveners: Francesca Zambon, Heidi Becker, Anton Ermakov, Paul Hartogh, Alessandro Moirano, Ali Sulaiman
OPS3

The ocean worlds of the solar system are now considered to be amongst the places in the solar system most likely to offer answers to a whole catalogue of questions concerning the origins and evolution of life. In this session, we will cover topics raging from the conditions for habitability, to ways of exploring these environments. Contributions including, but not purely limited to, results of past instruments and missions, and proposals for future missions and techniques are welcome.

Co-organized by MITM/EXOA
Convener: Axel Hagermann | Co-conveners: Stefan Schröder, Günter Kargl
OPS4

The Saturn system inspires awe with its brilliant bright rings, its diversity of moons from large to small, and the rapidly rotating planet itself with its polar hexagon and dramatic storm outbursts. The data from the Cassini-Huygens mission has aded more questions than answers, including whether the system has always looked this way, or it still rapidly evolving at recent times. This session welcomes submissions that address the many facets of the Saturn system, including those that seek to place it in the wider context of the solar system and exoplanetary systems.

Co-organized by MITM
Convener: Conor Nixon | Co-conveners: Mauro Ciarniello, Alice Lucchetti, Nadine Nettelmann
OPS5

Saturn's moon Titan, despite its satellite status, has nothing to envy the planets: it has planetary dimensions, a substantial and dynamic atmosphere, a carbon cycle, a variety of geological features (dunes, lakes, rivers, mountains and more), seasons, and a hidden ocean. It even now has its own mission: Dragonfly, selected by NASA in the frame of the New Frontiers program. In this session, scientific presentations are solicited to cover all aspects of current research on Titan: from its interior to its upper atmosphere, using data collected from the Cassini-Huygens mission (2004-2017) and/or from telescopes (e.g., ALMA, JWST) and/or based on modelling and experimental efforts to support the interpretation of past and future observations of this unique world.

Co-organized by MITM
Convener: Audrey Chatain | Co-conveners: Sandrine Vinatier, Anezina Solomonidou, Jani Radebaugh, Thomas Gautier, Tetsuya Tokano, Federico Tosi
OPS6

This session will cover all aspects of ice giant (IG) systems including (but not limited to) the atmospheric structure and composition, magnetospheres, interiors, satellites, and rings of the IGs. Interdisciplinary, crosscutting themes of ice giant planet exploration, such as the relationship to exoplanetary science and connections to heliophysics will also be considered in the session. The session will comprise a combination of solicited and contributed oral and poster presentations on new, continuing, and future studies of the ice giant systems and the importance of the ice giants to models of the formation and evolution of the giant planets and solar systems. We welcome abstracts that:
• Address the current understanding of ice giant systems, including atmospheres, interiors, magnetospheres, rings, and satellites including Triton.
• Advance our understanding of the ice giant systems in preparation for future exploration, both by remote sensing and in situ.
• Discuss what the ice giants can tell us about solar system formation and evolution leading to a better understanding of the current structure of the solar system and its habitable zone as well as extrasolar systems.
• Address outstanding science questions requiring future investigations including from spacecraft, remote sensing, theoretical, and laboratory work necessary to improve our knowledge of the ice giants and their relationship to the gas giants and the solar system.
• Present concepts of missions, instruments and investigations relevant to future exploration of the ice giant planetary systems.

Convener: Vincent Hue | Co-conveners: Thibault Cavalié, Emma Dahl, Leigh Fletcher, Ravit Helled, Mark Hofstadter, Adrienn Luspay-Kuti, Elias Roussos
OPS7

Atmospheric aerosols and cloud particles are found in every atmosphere of the solar system, as well as, in exoplanets. Depending on their size, shape, chemical composition, latent heat, and distribution, their effect on the radiation budget varies drastically and is difficult to predict. When organic, aerosols also carry a strong prebiotic interest reinforced by the presence of heavy atoms such as nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur.

The aim of the session is to gather presentations on these complex objects for both terrestrial and giant planet atmospheres, including the special cases of Titan’s, Pluto's and Triton's hazy atmospheres. All research aspects from their production and evolution processes, their observation/detection, to their fate and atmospheric impact are welcomed, including laboratory investigations and modeling.

Co-organized by TP/EXOA
Convener: Panayotis Lavvas | Co-conveners: Anni Määttänen, Audrey Chatain, Nathalie Carrasco
MITM1

This merged session welcomes a broad range of presentations about future missions and instrumentation. We encourage presentations on new Planetary science mission architectures and associated technologies, as well as dedicated instrumentation that can be developed for these applications.

Co-organized by TP/OPS/SB
Convener: Sébastien Besse | Co-conveners: Antonin Wargnier, Giovanni Munaretto, Stéphane Erard, Giovanni Poggiali
TP9

Impact processes have been shaping the Solar System, and modifying planetary surfaces and small bodies from its birth until today. This session aims at understanding impact processes in terms of impact cratering and ejecta dynamics, crater distribution and crater chronology, material mixing, shock metamorphism and other geochemical consequences, ejecta-atmosphere interactions, impact induced climatic and environmental effects, and biotic responses.

We welcome oral and poster presentations across this broad range of studies about natural or artificial impact collision phenomena on planetary surfaces and small bodies. In particular, abstracts on impact modelling, impact laboratory experiments, geologic and structural mapping, petrographic and geochemical analysis of impact products, as well as remote sensing observations from space missions to planets and small bodies.

Impacts also have a technical application for Planetary Defence, therefore we invite contributions from studies related to DART experiments and the upcoming HERA mission.

Co-organized by OPS/SB
Convener: Chrysa Avdellidou | Co-conveners: Robert Luther, Elena Martellato, Isabel Herreros, Jens Ormö, Christopher Hamann, Cem Berk Senel
SB13

Icy ocean worlds, comets and asteroids offer a rich, diverse array of targets to explore that address science questions ranging from origin and evolution to habitability and even biosignature searches. The Cassini mission discovered spectacular findings about the chemistry, physics and geology of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. JUICE and Europa Clipper will shed light on Jupiter’s moons. The Stardust mission returned samples from comet 81P/Wild2 and Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx recently returned samples from carbonaceous asteroids Ryugu and Bennu.
To fully exploit space mission data and prepare for upcoming missions, laboratory experiments are an essential part of calibrating instruments on board future spacecraft, verifying data returned by missions and informing numerical models of the diverse environments present on these bodies.
Analyzing returned samples from asteroids and comets substantially furthers our understanding of these small bodies in the Solar System. Both carbonaceous asteroids and comets are potentially analogous to the rocky interiors and primordial icy crusts of icy moons.
We seek contributions discussing laboratory experiments or studies with a laboratory component, including the analysis of returned samples, and their applications to icy ocean worlds, comets or asteroids.

Co-organized by OPS/MITM
Convener: Fabian Klenner | Co-conveners: Baptiste Journaux, Lucas Fifer, Rachael Hamp, Cécile Engrand, Morgan L. Cable
SB7

The goal of this session is to cover numerical simulations and relevant laboratory investigations related to the Small Bodies (comets, KBOs, rings, asteroids, meteorites, dust), their formation and evolution, and the instruments of their exploration. This session is specially focused on the interdisciplinary approach in the development of models (formal descriptions of physical phenomena), experiments (on ground and in micro-gravity), and mathematical simulations (computational methods and algorithms of solution) of various astrophysical phenomena: (i) dusty gas cometary atmospheres; (ii) volcanic activity on icy satellites (e.g. Enceladus and Io); (iii) planetary body formation (e.g. via pebbles growth), and planetesimal dynamics.

This session will include an introduction and discussion of new and/or existing laboratory studies in simulated space-like environments and models, experimental techniques, computational methods that can address the results of analytical, experimental and numerical analysis (with respect to computational methods and algorithms of solution) on the above described studies.

Abstracts on thermophysical evolution models of small bodies interiors as well as on the modeling of atmosphere and exosphere are welcome.

Co-organized by OPS
Convener: Vladimir Zakharov | Co-conveners: Stavro Lambrov Ivanovski, Raphael Marschall
EXOA8

With JWST scientifically operational since mid-2022, and PLATO and ARIEL on the horizon, we are now in the middle of a decade of exoplanet characterization. We therefore invite abstracts to this session with a focus on the characterization of rocky to sub-Neptune. This includes modeling of their internal chemical composition and structure, density and age, laboratory experiments and ab initio calculations, thermal evolution models, and atmospheric evolution models. We also invite abstracts focussing on the observational capability of current and upcoming space missions and ground-based telescopes to characterize low-mass to Neptune-size exoplanets. Our aim with this session is to foster the discussion between modelers, experimentalists and observers especially in preparation for the PLATO and ARIEL space missions.

Co-organized by TP/OPS
Convener: Lena Noack | Co-conveners: Heike Rauer, Theresa Lueftinger, Ana Maria Heras, Kevin Heng, Tim Lichtenberg
EXOA6

Over the last decades, we have been getting closer to characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets. This has sparked renewed investigations of how planetary atmospheres could act as a tracer of the evolution of planets as a whole system. Advances in planetary science have revealed an incredible diversity of possible atmospheres on the various planetary bodies in our galaxy and through time. Considerable efforts are being made at international level to better understand such diverse atmospheres and the driving forces behind their evolution. This session welcomes presentations regarding how our knowledge of current planetary atmospheres can shed light on their evolutionary paths. How can the exploration of planetary atmospheres inform about the history of planet formation, their long-term climate, and the interaction between atmosphere, surface, interior and volatile reservoirs?

Co-organized by TP/OPS
Convener: Ann Carine Vandaele | Co-conveners: Giuliano Liuzzi, Yeon Joo Lee, Cédric Gillmann, Anne Grete Straume-Lindner