100 Hours of Astronomy

As NASA’s Europa-Clipper Mission journeys through the solar system to conduct detailed studies of Jupiter’s 4th largest moon that is believed to have a subsurface ocean, one must recall this mission was driven by an accidental discovery in an observation with the Hubble Space Telescope. While this mission has been in progress for awhile now, we are still learning new things from after as ground- and space-based telescopes around the world advance in their capabilities. This is critical for not only mission planning and operations, but also to gain significant scientific insights into the object of interest that can help refine and improve the mission results. Additionally, we can do science with these telescopes that no planetary mission can or probably should do in situ. Since one telescope cannot reveal every detail of interest, nor tell a comprehensive story of ANY object, it is necessary to conduct studies at multiple wavelengths (hence multiple telescopes) to start to understand an object. I will present the complimentary and often critical suite of information to be gained across the electromagnetic spectrum to study objects in our solar system such as Europa or even other ocean worlds.  

Dr. Stefanie Milam is a Planetary Scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the JWST Project Scientist for Policy and Science Community. She is an expert in spectroscopy, observations, and laboratory astrophysics with a focus on studies of small bodies in the solar system (comets and interstellar objects [ISOs]). Milam maintains a renowned observational program and research group employing telescopes in and out of this world to routinely observe and characterize these objects. She is interested in learning how these icy relics created during planet formation tell us what ingredients were present during that period and how that influenced the diverse population of planets in our solar system and perhaps even habitability on Earth. She also has a laboratory dedicated to simulating cometary ices and study the chemistry that occurs from processing on a journey around the sun and uses these experiments to interpret observational data from missions that observe these bodies.