Meteorites are well known deliverers of volatiles, including water, sulfur, and organics, all of which can fundamentally alter the trajectory of a planetary body’s volatile budget. For instance, on Earth, the ingredients for life, or even life itself, may have been delivered by meteorites late in its evolution. Additionally, the organic inventories of icy moons, such as Enceladus and Europa, may have been supplied by chondritic materials during the accretion period in the early solar system. However, once it is delivered to a planetary body, there is limited information on the evolution of these molecules, including how they interact with the new environment, as well as how they may assist in producing habitable conditions. Therefore, it is important to constrain the thermodynamic properties of these delivered materials, such as heat capacity, onset temperature decomposition, as well as kinetics, to integrate into numerical simulations to further identify their long-term role in the evolution and habitability of icy moons.
Future Work
I’m interesting in collecting thermodynamic data of Enceladus-relevant materials in order to incorporate into numerical simulations to gain greater insight into its subsurface environment. This includes Determine the Heat Capacity for Different Organic Materials and Investigate the Kinetics of syn-IOM and Organic Matter Decomposition under icy-moon relevant conditions.