EXOA8

Exploration of the solar system and astrophysics missions have revealed remarkable insights into the composition and chemistry of the giant planets, their moons and ring systems, smaller bodies beyond Neptune, the interstellar medium, and protoplanetary disks. Increasingly sophisticated ground- and space-based instrumentation enables new observations and in situ measurements of these fascinating environments, which will facilitate novel chemical investigations at the forefront of planetary science.

Carbon chemistry is ubiquitous in the dense interstellar medium, with chemical modelling, laboratory experiments, and astrophysical observations suggesting that the complex macro-molecular building blocks of life could be synthesised in ices under these conditions. Such material can be incorporated into planetesimals during their accretion, and planetary bodies can today play host to complex chemistry. This is significant across many aspects of exploration in the outer solar system, particularly in the potentially habitable satellites of the giant planets. The subsurface liquid water oceans of the moons Enceladus (the only extraterrestrial ocean to have been sampled) and Europa are likely habitable, whilst Titan could be a natural prebiotic laboratory. Clearly, the characterisation of these fascinating geochemical environments is critical to understand habitability and search for extraterrestrial life. The New Horizons mission and JWST observations have characterised the compositions of primitive Trans-Neptunian Object (TNOs) in the farthest reaches of the solar system, enabling a direct comparison with the ices in protoplanetary disks that are the feedstock for carbonaceous molecules in extra-solar planetary systems.

This symposium will discuss our current understanding of chemistry in the outer solar system and beyond, welcoming contributions related to icy ocean worlds, ring systems, comets, asteroids, surfaces, TNOs, protoplanetary disks, and the interstellar medium. Results derived from space mission data, detections of organic molecules via telescopic observations, laboratory experiments predicting or characterising chemical processes, and theoretical approaches including quantum chemistry and geochemical modelling are encouraged. We also welcome contributions in astrobiology and related astrochemical implications.