February 5, 2024

Events

Speaker: Christopher Glein, Lead Scientist, Space Science, Southwest Research Institute

Title: Is there P in Enceladus’s ocean?

Host: Doug Hemingway

Abstract: Enceladus, one of the most alluring moons in the solar system, is of great interest because it has a subsurface water ocean that might be able to support life. In this talk, Dr. Christopher Glein will present a chronicle of habitability from spacecraft exploration of Enceladus, which will culminate with recent modeling and observational results that enabled us to resolve the mystery of phosphorus on this moon of Saturn.

Biography: Dr. Christopher Glein is a planetary scientist who is leading an effort to create a new field of extraterrestrial oceanography. His present research revolves around the “big three” icy ocean worlds – Enceladus, Europa, and Titan. He develops novel methods of analysis that enable inferences to be made on the geochemical properties of their environments and the governing processes using spacecraft compositional data. Glein was a member of the instrument team for the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), and he is now a Co-I on the Europa Clipper MAss Spectrometer for Planetary EXploration (MASPEX) team.