Oceans Ahoy! NASA’s Plans to Explore the Subsurface Seas of the Outer Solar System’s Icy Satellites

Academy of Science – Zoom

FREE and OPEN to ALL. Junior Academy members, middle and high school students welcome and encouraged to attend. Space is limited. Registration required! Register below for Zoom link to join this event. Event link sent w/confirmation email.

Speaker: William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis

You may have heard that certain icy moons of the outer Solar System harbor hidden oceans of liquid water. Well, it’s true! We have excellent evidence, if not proof, that there is such an ocean on Jupiter’s moon Europa and on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. So how did humankind figure this out, and how can we explore these exotic — and potentially habitable — realms? Dr. William McKinnon traces how this knowledge was won, and describes NASA’s exciting plans for further ocean world exploration, including the launch of the Europa Clipper mission in just a few years and proposed plans for an Enceladus Orbilander.

Oceans Ahoy! is a NASA Connection special partnership series of The Academy of Science – St. Louis and the NASA SOLAR SYSTEM AMBASSADORS – Southern Illinois. The NASA Connection Series is underwritten in part with support from Boeing and the Employees Community Fund of Boeing St. Louis, sponsoring the full array of Academy STEM Teens programming.