Ocean System Science to Inform the Exploration of Ocean Worlds

Ocean worlds provide fascinating opportunities for future ocean research. They allow us to test our understanding of processes we consider fundamental to Earth’s ocean and simultaneously provide motivation to explore our ocean further and develop new technologies to do so. In parallel, ocean worlds research offers opportunities for ocean scientists to provide meaningful contributions to novel investigations in the coming decades that will search for life beyond Earth. Key to the contributions that oceanographers can make to this field is that studies of all other ocean worlds remain extremely data limited. Here, we describe an approach based on ocean systems science in which theoretical modeling can be used, in concert with targeted laboratory experimentation and direct observations in Earth’s ocean, to predict what processes (including those essential to support life) might be occurring on other ocean worlds. In turn, such an approach would help identify new technologies that might be required for future space missions as well as appropriate analog studies that could be conducted on Earth to develop and validate such technologies. Our approach is both integrative and interdisciplinary and considers multiple domains, from processes active in the subseafloor to those associated with ocean-ice feedbacks.