The Earth Science Colloquium Series presents:
Exploring Ocean Worlds in the Outer Solar System
with Dr. Carol Raymond is a geophysicist and Principal and Senior Research Scientist at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. She was the Deputy Principal
Investigator of the NASA Dawn mission and served as PI in the Ceres extended mission. She is
the PI of the Europa Clipper Magnetometer investigation and recently served on the Steering
Committee for the National Academies’ Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey.
Abstract. The discovery of subsurface oceans on Jupiter’s moon Europa by the Galileo mission
and the tiny Saturnian moon Enceladus by the Cassini mission has revealed the potential of
tidally-heated icy moons in the outer solar system as possible habitats for life. Europa’s banded,
lineated surface, chaotic terrains and surface salt deposits suggest ongoing surface-ice-ocean
exchange, furthering its habitability potential. The tiger stripes on Enceladus have been shown
to cyclically spew ocean water into space, providing an opportunity to sample its subsurface
ocean and search for life. More recently, the Dawn mission found evidence for deep brines and
recent geologic activity on dwarf planet Ceres, indicating that even mid-sized heat-starved
bodies could potentially host subsurface oceans. These discoveries have motivated the
planetary science community to explore these objects further through modeling, observations
and in-situ sampling to better understand the processes that create habitable ocean worlds and
to search for biosignatures. The talk will focus on results from Dawn at Ceres and look forward
to what we will learn from Europa Clipper and future missions to Enceladus and beyond.
Host: Dr. Roger Buck, Lamont Research Professor, Marine Geology and Geophysics.
The Earth Science Colloquium Series, sponsored by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia University Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), provides a lively forum for discussing a wide variety of topics within the Earth sciences and related fields. Colloquia are attended by the full range of scientific and technical staff at LDEO. Colloquium attendance is required of all pre-orals DEES graduate students. The Colloquium Series supports the Lamont Seminar Diversity Initiative.
