Atmosphere Ocean Science Colloquium

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Decipher the icy satellites: from the ice shell geometry to the ocean dynamics

Speaker: Wanying Kang, MIT

Location: Warren Weaver Hall 1302

Date: Wednesday, September 24, 2025, 3:30 p.m.

Synopsis:

Icy moon oceans are promising targets in the search for extraterrestrial life, yet their internal dynamics remain difficult to characterize because most oceanic processes are concealed beneath the overlying ice shell. By contrast, the ice shell is relatively accessible to observation and can serve as a window into the ocean below. Using Enceladus (a moon of Saturn) as an example, I will review key geometric features of its ice shell, particularly the hemispheric asymmetry, and propose a mechanism for their origin. I will then show how variations in ice thickness can sustain meridional density gradients in the ocean, driving baroclinic eddies that redistribute heat and, in turn, reshape the ice shell. This framework will be applied to explain the flatness of Europa’s ice shell, a much larger moon of Jupiter, and to infer the partitioning of heat production between the ice shell and the silicate mantle on Enceladus.