Planetary Science Institute | 2018 Oct 22
Strategies to identify and explore ocean worlds in our Solar System should focus on a range of targets, including confirmed and unconfirmed ocean worlds, according to a new paper by a team led by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Amanda R. Hendrix. ...
As laid out in the paper, the ROW team supports the creation of an exploration program that studies the full spectrum of ocean worlds: not just the exploration of known ocean worlds such as Europa but also candidate ocean worlds. In their study, the ROW team finds that the confirmed ocean worlds Enceladus, Titan and Europa are the highest priority bodies to target in the near term. As far as candidate (unconfirmed) ocean worlds, Neptune’s moon Triton is the highest priority.
The study also finds that significant understanding of ocean worlds begins by studying our own planet. ...
The paper defines an ocean world as a body with a current liquid ocean, not necessarily global. All bodies in our Solar System that plausibly can have, or are known to have, an ocean are considered in this framework. The Earth is a well-studied ocean world used as a reference and point of comparison. Ice giant planets are not included as ocean worlds. ...
The NASA Roadmap to Ocean Worlds ~ Amanda R. Hendrix et al
- Astrobiology (online 13 Oct 2018) DOI: 10.1089/ast.2018.1955