General Membership Meeting: Understanding Liquid Stability Across the Solar System

Title: Understanding Liquid Stability Across the Solar System

Abstract: When identifying potential life elsewhere in the Solar System, liquids are seen as a key ingredient. Liquid water is proposed to be present on the surface of Mars and the subsurface of Europa, while Titan has lakes and seas of hydrocarbons on its surface. However, the chemistry of a solution may affect its stability and in turn its habitability. For instance, on Mars and Europa, salts affect the stability of water, depressing the freezing point to where liquid water could exist today. I will discuss how distinguishing between different salts, such as sulfates and chlorine salts, can help us pin down the current and past conditions of water and its prospects for supporting life. I will also talk about laboratory experiments, telescope observations, and modeling we are doing and how they relate to observations from current and past missions to Titan, Mars and Europa, and the stability of liquids and ices across the Solar System.

Guest Speaker:  Dr. Jennifer Hanley is a tenured planetary scientist at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ. She graduated from Cornell University in 2006 with a bachelors in Earth Science and received her PhD from University of Arkansas in 2013 in Space and Planetary Sciences. Her current research focuses on investigating the stability and properties of liquids and ices at low temperatures and pressures with relevance to the outer Solar System, especially Titan and Pluto. She also studies the stability of water and ice on Mars and Europa in the presence of salts

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Open to members and non-members alike, the Monthly General Meetings feature club announcements, member observing reports, and a headline guest speaker. Typically hailing from one of Colorado’s many science or technical organizations, speakers share their experiences on a wide range of astronomy topics.

Location: In-person at Regis University’s Peter Claver Hall, Room 315.
Meeting attendees can arrive at Regis starting at 6:30 p.m.
* Park in Lot 4, Lowell Boulevard between 52nd and 53rd Avenue

The meeting will also be available via Zoom for those unable to attend in-person. Zoom link will be posted closer to the event.