The European Research Council (ERC) has announced that it will support planetary scientist Dr. Nozair Khawaja, member of the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing working group, with an ERC Consolidator Grant, worth just under two million euros, to research Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn. Khawaja will use the grant to investigate the habitability of this moon as part of the research project AIMS (Analogue Icy Moon Simulations). Enceladus, a moon with a subsurface deep liquid water ocean that orbits Saturn, is widely considered one of the most promising targets in the outer solar system in the search for extraterrestrial life. This ERC grant will enable Khawaja and his team to simulate the conditions in Enceladus’ subsurface ocean, providing insight into whether life could be detected if it exists there. The researchers hope to gain knowledge that could be used to design and aid future space missions.

Contact

Dr. Nozair Khawaja, Institute of Geological Sciences, Department of Earth Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Email: nozair.khawaja@fu-berlin.de and Institute of Space Systems, University of Stuttgart, Email: khawajan@irs.uni-stuttgart.de