Several icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn harbour subsurface oceans potentially suitable for life. In contrast, our knowledge of Uranian moons is limited, as Voyager 2’s 1986 flyby remains the only visit. To improve our understanding, Dr Marc Rovira Navarro (TU Delft) has received a Veni grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) that will enable the development of software that models the moons’ evolution over billions of years and helps determine how a future mission could use it to detect hidden oceans.
Guiding future missions
An Uranian mission has been labelled as top-priority by the planetary science community and NASA and ESA are actively working on it. Rovira Navarro’s research will identify the critical measurements needed to distinguish between different interior and orbital evolution scenarios, guiding mission planning and maximising scientific return. “This will hopefully lay the groundwork for me and TU Delft to participate in the planetary mission that will shape the next decades of planetary exploration, a trip to Uranus and its enigmatic icy moons”, says Rovira Navarro, Assistant Professor Planetary Exploration at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the TU Delft.