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Kelsi Singer
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
Advisor: William McKinnon
Abstract
Europa's subsurface ocean is one of the few places in our solar system where life might survive outside of earth. Because of this Europa has been selected as the destination for the next NASA Outer Planets Flagship Mission. Whether the ice shell overlying the ocean is think or thick has been a long standing debate in the icy satellites community, and the thickness of the ice shell has implications for whether life could exist below it. One of the ways we try to answer this question is through an analysis of surface geology. This work focuses on features on Europa created through subsurface thermal and tectonic anomalies, such as diapirs. Pits, spots, uplifts and small chaos regions are mapped and the distribution tells us about their formation mechanism. This work finds a peak in the distribution of features at ~5 km in diameter, indicating there is a preferential size to the features. This implies an origin by diapir, and further modeling to find out what controls this preferred size will help us understand the thickness of the ice shell.
Kelsi Singer is a 3rd year graduate student in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. She is originally from Colorado and attended University of Colorado, Boulder, where she obtained her undergraduate degrees in Astronomy and Anthropology. She currently holds an Olin Fellowship and researches geophysics of the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn under Professor William McKinnon. Additionally she is dedicated to promoting women in science and is the current president of the St. Louis Chapter of the Association for Women in Science. As she is interested in both research and teaching, she would like to obtain a position at a university in the future.
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