SwRI scientists repurpose chemistry modeling software to study life-supporting conditions on icy moons
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 19, 2024
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is transforming software traditionally used for electrolyte modeling and corrosion prediction into an advanced tool for assessing whether ice-covered worlds could support microbial life. This effort is part of NASA’s Habitable Worlds program, which leverages Earth’s history to better understand the processes and conditions that foster habitability.
Typically employed to forecast chemical behavior under various conditions, the chemistry modeling software at SwRI has been pivotal in defining corrosive environments. Dr. Florent Bocher, Group Leader at SwRI, has applied it extensively for such studies. In 2023, Bocher, alongside Dr. Charity Phillips-Lander, a Senior Research Scientist at SwRI who focuses on organics in icy world laboratory analogs, began investigating whether this tool could characterize the harsh conditions where microbial life might exist.
The software, initially designed for corrosion research, proved adaptable to modeling the extreme environments found on icy moons like Europa and Enceladus. Unlike many existing environmental modeling tools, this software includes organic compounds essential for life in its simulations, enhancing its ability to predict conditions conducive to life.
“The question of habitability is about constraining the environmental factors that make it more likely to be friendly to life versus inhospitable,” explained Phillips-Lander. “Most geochemical modeling software doesn’t account for organics at the conditions expected on ocean worlds, so I couldn’t model things that I was seeing in the lab during laboratory investigations of the conditions of ice-covered moons in our solar system, like Europa and Enceladus.”
Their work revealed that the model could anticipate the presence of pores within ice containing organic compounds – findings consistent with Phillips-Lander’s laboratory observations. Encouraged by these results, Bocher and Phillips-Lander joined forces with Dr. Mike Rubal, a Staff Scientist at SwRI, to enhance the software further. NASA’s Habitable Worlds program awarded SwRI a three-year, $750,000 grant to advance the tool’s capabilities.
“With improvements, this tool will be able to provide a great deal of valuable information about ocean worlds,” Bocher noted. “It’s one thing to know what chemical composition to expect, but it’s much more helpful to know what compounds are present, and what chemical phases they’re in.”
The team is collaborating with a software provider to refine the tool, enhancing its accuracy for modeling conditions on moons such as Saturn’s Enceladus, believed to host a subsurface ocean with potential for life.
“This new project will help us collect that missing data, add it to the modeling software, and then construct those models to provide greater context for laboratory investigations into these icy ocean worlds, and hopefully also what we would see during a future mission,” said Phillips-Lander.
Related Links
Earth Science at SwRI
Lands Beyond Beyond – extra solar planets – news and science
Life Beyond Earth
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