This event is part of the Athena Lecture series.
One of the most important realisations that planetary scientists have come to in the last 30 years is that in the search for potential habitability in our solar system, the focus need not only be on planets close to the Sun, where water on the surface is in liquid form. Based on observations from instruments on the GALILEO spacecraft at Jupiter and the CASSINI spacecraft at Saturn, there are many potential places in our solar system where liquid water oceans may exist below the surface. Discoveries made by CASSINI scientists, as well as future discoveries waiting to be made at Jupiter’s moons with the European Space Agency mission JUICE will be described. The JUICE mission was successfully launched from Kourou in French Guiana in April 2023. The JUICE spacecraft will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant planet Jupiter and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, which all show hints of hosting liquid water oceans beneath their crusts. On Earth, life thrives in the deepest, darkest parts of our oceans near hydrothermal vents. Could life similarly evolve or survive in the ocean floors of these moons?
This lecture will be followed by a networking reception.
About Professor Michele Dougherty
Michele Dougherty is Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), a position she took up in January 2025. STFC is one of the nine councils of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which supports research in astronomy, physics, computational science and space science, and operates world-class research facilities for the UK.
Michele is Astronomer Royal, the first woman to hold this prestigious role.
She is a professor of space physics and former Head of the Department of Physics at Imperial College London. Michele led unmanned exploratory missions to Saturn and Jupiter and was the principal investigator of the magnetometer instrument onboard the Cassini mission to Saturn. She is principal investigator of the magnetometer for the European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) that launched in April 2023.
Michele is a Fellow of the Royal Society. In addition to being awarded the Royal Astronomical Society Geophysics Gold medal in 2017, and a CBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours List, she has also been awarded the Institute of Physics Richard Glazebrook Gold Medal and Prize.