Investigating Europa's Habitability with the Europa Clipper.

The habitability of Europa is a property within a system, which is driven by a multitude of physical and chemical processes and is defined by many interdependent parameters, so that its full characterization requires collaborative investigation. To explore Europa as an integrated system to yield a complete picture of its habitability, the Europa Clipper mission has three primary science objectives: (1) characterize the ice shell and ocean including their heterogeneity, properties, and the nature of surface-ice-ocean exchange; (2) characterize Europa's composition including any non-ice materials on the surface and in the atmosphere, and any carbon-containing compounds; and (3) characterize Europa's geology including surface features and localities of high science interest. The mission will also address several cross-cutting science topics including the search for any current or recent activity in the form of thermal anomalies and plumes, performing geodetic and radiation measurements, and assessing high-resolution, co-located observations at select sites to provide reconnaissance for a potential future landed mission.

On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems.

Physical laws-such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics-codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. We propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving universe. An important feature of the classical laws of physics is the conceptual equivalence of specific characteristics shared by an extensive, seemingly diverse body of natural phenomena.

Exploring the Interior of Europa with the Europa Clipper.

The Galileo mission to Jupiter revealed that Europa is an ocean world. The Galileo magnetometer experiment in particular provided strong evidence for a salty subsurface ocean beneath the ice shell, likely in contact with the rocky core. Within the ice shell and ocean, a number of tectonic and geodynamic processes may operate today or have operated at some point in the past, including solid ice convection, diapirism, subsumption, and interstitial lake formation.

Planetary Protection Assessment of Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)-Powered Landed Missions to Ocean Worlds: Application to Enceladus.

Landed missions to icy worlds with a subsurface liquid water ocean must meet planetary protection requirements and ensure a sufficiently small likelihood of any microorganism-bearing part of the landed element reaching the ocean. A higher bound on this likelihood is set by the potential for radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) power sources, the hottest possible landed element, to melt through the ice shell and reach the ocean. In this study, we quantify this potential as a function of three key parameters: surface temperature, ice shell thickness (.

Science Objectives for Flagship-Class Mission Concepts for the Search for Evidence of Life at Enceladus.

revealed that Saturn's Moon Enceladus hosts a subsurface ocean that meets the accepted criteria for habitability with bio-essential elements and compounds, liquid water, and energy sources available in the environment. Whether these conditions are sufficiently abundant and collocated to support life remains unknown and cannot be determined from data. However, thanks to the plume of oceanic material emanating from Enceladus' south pole, a new mission to Enceladus could search for evidence of life without having to descend through kilometers of ice.

Jupiter's Overturning Circulation: Breaking Waves Take the Place of Solid Boundaries.

Cloud-tracked wind observations document the role of eddies in putting momentum into the zonal jets. Chemical tracers, lightning, clouds, and temperature anomalies document the rising and sinking in the belts and zones, but questions remain about what drives the flow between the belts and zones. We suggest an additional role for the eddies, which is to generate waves that propagate both up and down from the cloud layer.

Understanding Hypervelocity Sampling of Biosignatures in Space Missions.

The atomic-scale fragmentation processes involved in molecules undergoing hypervelocity impacts (HVIs; defined as 3 km/s) are challenging to investigate via experiments and still not well understood. This is particularly relevant for the consistency of biosignals from small-molecular-weight neutral organic molecules obtained during solar system robotic missions sampling atmospheres and plumes at hypervelocities. Experimental measurements to replicate HVI effects on neutral molecules are challenging, both in terms of accelerating uncharged species and isolating the multiple transition states over very rapid timescales (1 ps).

Small lightning flashes from shallow electrical storms on Jupiter.

Lightning flashes have been observed by a number of missions that visited or flew by Jupiter over the past several decades. Imagery led to a flash rate estimate of about 4 × 10 flashes per square kilometre per year (refs. ).

The root of anomalously specular reflections from solid surfaces on Saturn's moon Titan.

Saturn's moon Titan has a methane cycle with clouds, rain, rivers, lakes, and seas; it is the only world known to presently have a volatile cycle akin to Earth's tropospheric water cycle. Anomalously specular radar reflections (ASRR) from Titan's tropical region were observed with the Arecibo Observatory (AO) and Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and interpreted as evidence for liquid surfaces. The Cassini spacecraft discovered lakes/seas on Titan, however, it did not observe lakes/seas at the AO/GBT anomalously specular locations.

Discriminating Abiotic and Biotic Fingerprints of Amino Acids and Fatty Acids in Ice Grains Relevant to Ocean Worlds.

Identifying and distinguishing between abiotic and biotic signatures of organic molecules such as amino acids and fatty acids is key to the search for life on extraterrestrial ocean worlds. Impact ionization mass spectrometers can potentially achieve this by sampling water ice grains formed from ocean water and ejected by moons such as Enceladus and Europa, thereby exploring the habitability of their subsurface oceans in spacecraft flybys. Here, we extend previous high-sensitivity laser-based analog experiments of biomolecules in pure water to investigate the mass spectra of amino acids and fatty acids at simulated abiotic and biotic relative abundances.

Origin of Molecular Oxygen in Comets: Current Knowledge and Perspectives.

The Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument onboard the Rosetta spacecraft has measured molecular oxygen (O) in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) in surprisingly high abundances. These measurements mark the first unequivocal detection of O in a cometary environment. The large relative abundance of O in 67P/C-G despite its high reactivity and low interstellar abundance poses a puzzle for its origin in comet 67P/C-G, and potentially other comets.

Prevalent lightning sferics at 600 megahertz near Jupiter's poles.

Lightning has been detected on Jupiter by all visiting spacecraft through night-side optical imaging and whistler (lightning-generated radio waves) signatures. Jovian lightning is thought to be generated in the mixed-phase (liquid-ice) region of convective water clouds through a charge-separation process between condensed liquid water and water-ice particles, similar to that of terrestrial (cloud-to-cloud) lightning. Unlike terrestrial lightning, which emits broadly over the radio spectrum up to gigahertz frequencies, lightning on Jupiter has been detected only at kilohertz frequencies, despite a search for signals in the megahertz range .

Implications of the ammonia distribution on Jupiter from 1 to 100 bars as measured by the Juno microwave radiometer.

The latitude-altitude map of ammonia mixing ratio shows an ammonia-rich zone at 0-5°N, with mixing ratios of 320-340 ppm, extending from 40-60 bars up to the ammonia cloud base at 0.7 bars. Ammonia-poor air occupies a belt from 5-20°N.

Cassini finds molecular hydrogen in the Enceladus plume: Evidence for hydrothermal processes.

Saturn's moon Enceladus has an ice-covered ocean; a plume of material erupts from cracks in the ice. The plume contains chemical signatures of water-rock interaction between the ocean and a rocky core. We used the Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer onboard the Cassini spacecraft to detect molecular hydrogen in the plume.

Acetonitrile cluster solvation in a cryogenic ethane-methane-propane liquid: Implications for Titan lake chemistry.

The atmosphere of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, exhibits interesting UV- and radiation-driven chemistry between nitrogen and methane, resulting in dipolar, nitrile-containing molecules. The assembly and subsequent solvation of such molecules in the alkane lakes and seas found on the moon's surface are of particular interest for investigating the possibility of prebiotic chemistry in Titan's hydrophobic seas. Here we characterize the solvation of acetonitrile, a product of Titan's atmospheric radiation chemistry tentatively detected on Titan's surface [H.

Polymorphism and electronic structure of polyimine and its potential significance for prebiotic chemistry on Titan.

The chemistry of hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is believed to be central to the origin of life question. Contradictions between Cassini-Huygens mission measurements of the atmosphere and the surface of Saturn's moon Titan suggest that HCN-based polymers may have formed on the surface from products of atmospheric chemistry. This makes Titan a valuable "natural laboratory" for exploring potential nonterrestrial forms of prebiotic chemistry.

The presence of clathrates in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Cometary nuclei are considered to most closely reflect the composition of the building blocks of our solar system. As such, comets carry important information about the prevalent conditions in the solar nebula before and after planet formation. Recent measurements of the time variation of major and minor volatile species in the coma of the Jupiter family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) by the ROSINA (Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis) instrument onboard Rosetta provide insight into the possible origin of this comet.

Membrane alternatives in worlds without oxygen: Creation of an azotosome.

The lipid bilayer membrane, which is the foundation of life on Earth, is not viable outside of biology based on liquid water. This fact has caused astronomers who seek conditions suitable for life to search for exoplanets within the "habitable zone," the narrow band in which liquid water can exist. However, can cell membranes be created and function at temperatures far below those at which water is a liquid? We take a step toward answering this question by proposing a new type of membrane, composed of small organic nitrogen compounds, that is capable of forming and functioning in liquid methane at cryogenic temperatures.

PROTOSOLAR AMMONIA AS THE UNIQUE SOURCE OF TITAN's NITROGEN.

The origin of Titan's nitrogen-rich atmosphere is thought to be ammonia ice, but this has not yet been confirmed. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether the building blocks of Titan formed within the Saturnian subnebula or in the colder protosolar nebula (PSN). Recent measurements of the nitrogen isotope ratio in cometary ammonia, combined with evolutionary constraints on the nitrogen isotopes in Titan's atmosphere provide firm evidence that the nitrogen in Titan's atmosphere must have originated as ammonia ice formed in the PSN under conditions similar to that of cometary formation.

Microlensing detection of extrasolar planets.

We review the method of exoplanetary microlensing with a focus on two-body planetary lensing systems. The physical properties of planetary systems can be successfully measured by means of a deep analysis of lightcurves and high-resolution imaging of planetary systems, countering the concern that microlensing cannot determine planetary masses and orbital radii. Ground-based observers have had success in diagnosing properties of multi-planet systems from a few events, but space-based observations will be much more powerful and statistically more complete.

The tides of Titan.

We have detected in Cassini spacecraft data the signature of the periodic tidal stresses within Titan, driven by the eccentricity (e = 0.028) of its 16-day orbit around Saturn. Precise measurements of the acceleration of Cassini during six close flybys between 2006 and 2011 have revealed that Titan responds to the variable tidal field exerted by Saturn with periodic changes of its quadrupole gravity, at about 4% of the static value.