OPS8

Since the Galileo mission found evidence for global subsurface oceans at Jupiter’s icy moons over 30 years ago, the icy moons of the giant planets have become central targets of planetary science and astrobiology. The Cassini discovery in 2005 of plumes sourced from Enceladus’ global ocean further raised the interest. Now, with the highly anticipated arrival of NASA’s Europa Clipper & ESA’s Juice spacecraft in the Jovian system in the early 2030s, and NASA’s Dragonfly planned for launch in 2028, there is a growing buzz of excitement about what these missions could uncover.

At the same time, the selection of Enceladus as the primary target of ESA’s L4 mission highlights the importance of preparing for the long-term future of ocean world exploration today. With a landing tentatively on the timeline for the 2050s, this mission has the potential to revolutionise our understanding of the ocean chemistry, habitability, and astrobiology of these worlds.

This session will explore the common physical and chemical processes within the diverse population of the ocean worlds of our solar system. We welcome a broad range of abstracts covering:

Transport of material from ocean to surface and how this may lead to mission observables
Geophysics comparisons between bodies
Aqueous and prebiotic geochemistry
Lab experiments aimed at characterising their interiors or surfaces.
Surface phenomena including geophysics, impacts and space weathering
Constraints on conductive heat flow, ocean composition, and other global properties utilising existing observations and/or modelling

With the advent of Juice, Europa Clipper, Dragonfly, and the progressing planning for ESA L4, we particularly look forward to accepting abstracts relating to to these mission targets, as well as studies of other candidate ocean worlds such as Callisto & Triton, and current efforts aimed at maximising the scientific return of these missions.