Physics Special Colloquium: Looking for Life in the Outer Solar System - Enceladus, Titan, Europa

"Looking for Life in the Outer Solar System: Enceladus, Titan, Europa" - Beyond Mars, three moons in the outer solar system-Jupiter's Europa, Saturn's Titan and Enceladus- appear to host environments that are provisionally suitable for sustaining life. All three contain liquid water oceans beneath their icy crusts, while one (Titan) has surface seas of methane and ethane. The oceans of Europa and Enceladus are salty, and the latter's is charged with organic molecules. I will describe the data from Galileo (for Europa) and Cassini (for Titan and Enceladus) that lead to the assertion of habitability, and discuss future exploration plans including the Europa Multiple Flyby mission, now under development for launch in the early 2020's. Jonathan Lunine's Bio: http://astro.cornell.edu/members/jonathan-lunine.html