Please join the Physics & Astronomy Department for our next Seminar Speaker Series event!

Exploring Jupiter’s Ocean World with NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission with Dr. Robert Pappalardo, JPL Fellow and the Project Scientist for NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

Snacks at 4:30 pm, talk begins at 4:45 pm.

On October 14, 2024, NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft launched on its journey to study Jupiter’s ocean world, Europa. Currently en route to the Jovian system, beginning in 2031 the spacecraft will conduct nearly fifty close flybys to investigate the moon’s ice shell, ocean, composition, geology, and potential habitability. Europa may be a habitable world, containing the “ingredients” necessary for life within its global subsurface ocean. Data from the Galileo spacecraft suggest that this ocean lies beneath an icy shell, and the moon’s youthful surface and magnetic measurements imply that a salty ocean persists today. Tidal forces fracture the ice shell into ridges and bands, and chaotic terrains suggest ice movement and local melting. Europa Clipper’s advanced suite of remote-sensing and in-situ instruments will probe these features in unprecedented detail and search for present-day activity such as plumes. This presentation will summarize our current understanding of Europa and highlight both the science potential and the status of the Europa Clipper mission.

Dr. Robert Pappalardo has served as the Project Scientist for the first extended mission of the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal. He received his B.A. in Geological Sciences from Cornell University in 1986, and he obtained his Ph.D. in Geology from Arizona State University in 1994. His research focuses on processes that have shaped the icy satellites of the outer solar system, especially Europa and the role of its probable subsurface ocean.