Session outline
| Biogeosciences(B) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Session Sub Category | Complex & General | |
| Session ID | B-CG08 | |
| Title | From Deep Sea to Deep Space: the Solar System Ocean World Exploration to Search for Life | |
| Short title | Ocean World Exploration in Space | |
| Main Convener | Name | Hajime Yano |
| Affiliation | Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency | |
| Co-Convener 1 | Name | Christophe Sotin |
| Affiliation | Jet Propulsion Laboratory | |
| Co-Convener 2 | Name | Ken Takai |
| Affiliation | Extremobiosphere Research Center, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology | |
| Language | EE | |
| Scope | Since 2000's, deep space exploration missions such as the Galileo to the Jovian system and the Cassini/Huygens to the Saturn system have demonstrated that several icy satellites (e.g., Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, and Enceladus) have a deep global ocean below their icy crust. Among them, Europa and Enceladus are likely to have liquid water in contact with a rocky core, an interface very similar to the terrestrial, deep sea-floor where life was discovered about 50 years ago. 'Ocean worlds' within our Solar System hold the greatest potential in humanity's search for extant life, as well as a second abiogenesis (independent origin of life) beyond the Earth. Comparative oceanography of conditions on the Earth, Europa, Enceladus, Titan, and elsewhere will likely also spark new discoveries and insights that inform our search for Earth-like worlds among the rapidly growing list of exoplanets. To achieve this goal that will game-change astrobiology research, interdisciplinary collaborations among astronomy, planetary science, oceanography, geophysics, chemistry and biology are must and such efforts have been started in Japan, the United States, and Europe since early 2010's. This session thus welcomes papers describing the diversity of terrestrial seafloor fluid flows, the diversity of biological populations, the technologies involved in the exploration of the terrestrial sea-floor, physical, chemical and potentially biological conditions in deep oceans of the icy satellites, key instrument developments for habitability investigation and biomarker and life detections on the Earth and other 'ocean worlds' in the Solar System, lessons learned from the terrestrial deep sea exploration to deep space exploration including planetary protection issues, and prospects for the Solar System ocean world exploration missions in the coming decades. | |
| Type of presentation | Oral and Poster presentation | |
| Invited authors | ||