Volcanism and Cryovolcanism Throughout the Solar System
Earth, Io, and Titan
Rosaly M.C. Lopes
Senior Research Scientist
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
About the Lecture
The planets and moons of the Solar System are incredibly diverse worlds with histories both ancient and dramatic. Etched into their surfaces is a fascinating story of fire and ice, of order and upheaval, of slow change and great cataclysms. Volcanoes are common throughout the Solar System and volcanic eruptions are among nature’s most awesome spectacles. On Earth, eruptions range from gentle, beautiful outpourings of lava to catastrophic explosive events. Volcanoes on Earth and other worlds are found in a wide variety of landscapes—even ice volcanoes on the surfaces of icy moons. This lecture will discuss the various types of volcanism and volcanos on Earth and throughout the Solar System, particularly the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Volcanism may enable habitability, and further exploration of moons such as Europa, Enceladus, and Titan will reveal whether they could have habitable conditions.
Additional Information About the Lecture
Gregg, T.K.P., Lopes, R.M.C., and Fagents, S.A. (Eds): Planetary Volcanism across the Solar System. Comparative Planetology Series, volume 1 (series editors P.K. Byrne, R.M.C. Lopes, and M.A. Siegler). Elsevier, 2021.
S. M. MacKenzie, et al. (2021). Titan: Earth-like on the Outside, Ocean World on the Inside. Plan. Sci. Journ., 2:112 (13pp), https://doi.org/10.3847/PSJ/abf7c9
Lopes, R.M.C., et al. (2010): Beyond Earth: How extra-terrestrial volcanism has changed our definition of a volcano. In: “What’s a volcano? New answers to an old question”. Geological Society of America Special Paper 470 (Eds. E. Canon and A. Szakacs).
About the Speaker
Rosaly M. C. Lopes is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She also serves as Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University,and Principal Investigator at NASA’s Astrobiology Institute for the project Habitability of Hydrocarbon Worlds: Titan and Beyond. She also previously served as Editor-in-Chief of Icarus, and as President of the Planetary Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union,
Her major research interests are in planetary and terrestrial geology and volcanology. For more than a decade, she was a member of the Galileo mission team, responsible for observations of Jupiter’s moon Io and its extraordinary volcanic activity using the spacecraft’s Near Infrared Mapping Spectrometer. In the course of her work, she discovered 71 active volcanoes on Io —- the largest number known anywhere in the solar system. This achievement earned her recognition in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Rosaly also contributed to the Cassini mission to Saturn and currently leads an international team studying Cassini data on the geology and potential habitability of Titan as Principal Investigator in NASA’s Astrobiology Institute.
Among her many honors, she is a Fellow of the AAAS, GSA, and AGU; an elected member of the International Academy of Astronautics; and a recipient of two NASA Exceptional Public Service Medals, the Adler Planetarium’s Women in Science Award, the Antarctica Service Medal from the NSF, the Lowell Thomas Medal from the Explorers Club, the Wings WorldQuest Women of Discovery Air and Space Award, and the American Astronomical Society’s Carl Sagan Medal. Asteroid (22454) Rosalylopes has been named in her honor.
She is the author of more than 135 peer-reviewed scientific publications and eight books. She has lectured on her work on every continent—including Antarctica —and has conducted hundreds of interviews, appearing in more than 20 television documentaries.
Rosaly earned a BSc in Astronomy and a PhD in Planetary Science at University College London.
Web and Social Media Resources
Webpage(s):
https://science.nasa.gov/people/rosaly-lopes/
https://explorescientific.com/pages/explore-alliance-ambassadors-dr-rosaly-m-c-lopes
https://volcanoworld.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/rosaly-lopes/
http://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Lopes/
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