Baylor Researcher Explores Ocean Moon of Jupiter Through Innovative Machine-Learning Approach
Geosciences Ph.D. candidate uses machine learning to map the seafloor of one of Jupiter’s largest moons
Contact: Shelby Cefaratti-Bertin, 254-327-8012
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Could Jupiter’s moon Europa support life? That is a question that Alyssa Mills, a Ph.D. candidate in geosciences at Baylor University and a graduate affiliate of NASA's Europa Clipper mission science team, is hoping to answer through a type of artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning. NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft, which successfully launched on Oct. 14, will make 49 close flybys of Europa, offering the first opportunity to map the seafloor of an extraterrestrial ocean world and bring scientists closer to understanding the potential for life on another world.
Europa, the second moon of Jupiter, is covered with ice but is believed to harbor a vast liquid ocean beneath its surface. Understanding the characteristics of Europa's seafloor could provide critical insights into the moon’s potential habitability.
Gravity mapping with machine learning
Mills’ research uses geodesy – the study of Earth’s shape, gravity and orientation in space – and applies this technique to Europa to focus on gravity anomalies associated with Europa’s seafloor, where the greatest density contrasts exist between water and rock. Machine learning will train a model that can interpret Europa Clipper’s gravity data and infer the topography of the moon’s seafloor.
“Since Europa Clipper will be completing flybys instead of orbiting, it will fly at varying altitudes, which makes line-of-sight residuals better suited to characterize Europa’s gravity anomalies,” Mills said.
Her model uses simulated radio signals and synthetic data based on known topographies from other planetary bodies, such as the Moon and Mars. Once Europa Clipper returns real data from its flybys, the machine learning model will be able to identify patterns associated with Europa’s seafloor characteristics, including variations in gravity that may suggest seamounts or other geological features crucial to habitability.
“Machine learning is especially useful for this problem because it offers many advantages like handling noisy data, complexity and non-linearity, scalability and automation,” said Mills, adding that the model will “output the most plausible seafloor topography associated with the measurement,” which will contribute to the broader understanding of Europa's subsurface ocean.
Searching for habitability
Mills' research is central to exploring whether Europa could support life based on information from Earth’s ocean floors. Seafloor structures such as hydrothermal vents generate chemical reactants essential for life, and similar structures on Europa could suggest the potential for habitability. While Earth’s seafloor has been well-mapped, little is known about extraterrestrial ocean floors. Europa Clipper, along with future missions, will provide critical data on this front.
“Since Earth can host life at its seafloor at seamounts and hydrothermal vents, it has been speculated that other extraterrestrial worlds’ seafloors could have similar structures and whether such worlds could be habitable,” Mills said.
The machine-learning approach is expected to significantly accelerate the analysis of Europa Clipper's data and lay the foundation for interpreting future gravity missions across the solar system. By combining geodesy with cutting-edge AI techniques, this research will not only advance our understanding of Europa’s ocean but also inform the search for habitable environments beyond Earth.
As a Ph.D. candidate working on a major international research mission, Mills represents the unique opportunities that Baylor graduate and undergraduate students are afforded in impactful research opportunities. Mills’ advisor Peter James, Ph.D., associate professor of planetary geosciences, has watched her consistently excel during her time at Baylor.
“Alyssa’s natural curiosity is what I appreciate most about advising her,” James said. “She is taking a deep dive into questions I never would have thought to ask, and her enthusiasm for the subject matter is contagious.”
With the emergence of artificial intelligence and other technologies, the world faces new challenges which Baylor is uniquely positioned to address at the intersection of faith, ethics, humanities, education and research, outlined in the University’s Baylor in Deeds strategic plan. As Baylor researchers integrate cutting-edge data science and technologies into their work, they also focus on developing students to be more fully human and guided by moral, intellectual and spiritual virtues as they use new tools to effectively advance knowledge.
“Artificial intelligence is going to be a game-changing tool for spacecraft data analysis. The emphasis of this technology in the Baylor in Deeds strategic plan is timely,” James said.
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