Colloquium Abstract - de Kleer - 2024Mar15
March 15, 2024
11:00am Mountain
Katherine de Kleer (Caltech)
Investigating the Thermal Histories of Solar System Moons and Small Bodies
Abstract
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 formation and long-term thermal history. In this talk, I will present how we are using observations from ALMA and the VLA to address the question of the heat flow histories of satellites and small bodies. In particular, we are constraining the long-term history of tidal heating and outgassing at Jupiter’s moon Io from ALMA measurements of the isotopes of volatile elements. In addition, we are investigating the early heating and differentiation of planetesimals by mapping the compositional heterogeneity of thermally-evolved asteroids using ALMA and VLA thermal emission and polarization data.
Local Host: Bryan Butler
