EUROPA Ocean Workshop; November 12-14, 1996, San Juan Capistrano, California

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OCE-9612530 This NASA and NSF sponsored conference will explore ideas related to Europa's possible ocean, submarine volcanism, and biological activity. Europa is one of the four large Galilean satellites of Jupiter. Data and theory have suggested (though not proven) that Europa has an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust. Europa undergoes tidal heating similar to that driving the spectacular volcanism on the Jovian moon Io, and this heating may have been sufficient to melt the ice and maintain an ocean. Among the topics the conference will address are geologic and geophysical evidence concerning an ocean, and what its physical state might be. If an ocean exists on Europa, the question of whether it could support life immediately arises. The first detailed examination of Europa by the Voyager spacecraft (in 1979) coincided very closely with the first detailed investigation by oceanographers of volcano- hydrothermal sites on the Earth's seafloor. That work has shown that in the presence of liquid water, volcanoes can sustain life without energy from the sun. Submarine volcanism is also a possibility on Europa. A major purpose of the conference, then, will be to examine critically the arguments for and against submarine volcanism on Europa, and the likelihood that such activity could support biological activity there as well. A related and controversial topic is the issue of whether life can have originated at submarine volcanic systems, on Earth and on planets in general. The conference will bring together the planetary science, oceanography, and exobiology communities to explore these topics. The conference, jointly supported by NASA's Solar System Exploration Division (Exobiology Program Office) and NSF's Ocean Science Program, will also deal with ongoing and future robotic exploration of Europa. The Galileo spacecraft is now in orbit around Jupiter, and will make multiple flyby examinations of Europa during its mission. Follow-on missio ns could be flown to Europa that would address the existence of an ocean in detail, and that would explore the ocean the ocean if it were found to be present. The conference will address the measurement techniques that could be used on such missions, and their implications for further solar system exploration.