EPS Colloquium – Katherine de Kleer, CalTech

The Thermal Histories of Solar System Moons and Small Bodies

The heat flow of a planetary body plays a major role in defining its evolution and current composition, driving processes from internal differentiation during its formation period through geological activity at the current time. However, these same active processes erase many of the surface signatures that would allow us to reconstruct its long-term thermal history. In this talk, I will present novel observational approaches, using primarily the ALMA interferometer at millimeter wavelengths, to address the question of the heat flow histories of satellites and small bodies. First, we are constraining the long-term history of tidal heating and outgassing at Jupiter’s moon Io from measurements of sulfur isotopes at millimeter wavelengths. Second, we are investigating the early heating and differentiation of planetesimals by mapping the compositional heterogeneity of thermally-evolved asteroids using high-resolution ALMA thermal emission and polarization data. Finally, I will describe how upcoming data from our JWST Cycle 1 program will provide further insight into the early heating of planetesimals through mineralogical studies of targeted asteroid classes.

Katherine de Kleer’s webpage

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