Madeleine Coles

News Editor

Geosciences Assistant Professor Shannon Kobs-Nawotniak will be the geologist and volcanologist on a new study with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

The project is called SUBSEA, which stands for Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog; its goal is to better understand the conditions of one of Saturn’s moons, which some scientists believe could be the best hope for life outside of Earth.

“Right now one of the big ideas is that maybe our best location to be looking might actually be in Enceladus, which is one of Saturn’s moons,” Kobs-Nawotniak said.

Enceladus is made up of an icy outer surface with a liquid ocean and a rocky interior. Kobs-Nawotniak and other scientists believe it is possible that there are volcanoes on the rocky interior similar to volcanoes at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

According to Kobs-Nawotniak, when lava comes out of the ground, it is sterile. It is then inhabited by microbial life because the water interacting with rock makes it possible for parts of the rock to be available to the microbes to eat, which enables life in a condition unlike what was previously thought necessary for life to be possible.

“They’re so far down there’s no sunlight,” Kobs-Nawotniak said. “It’s a really different condition.”

Kobs-Nawotniak will be traveling to the Inner Space Center in Rhode Island at the end of October or beginning of November for extensive training to prepare for the actual study, which will be happening next summer.

The study will involve two volcanoes, one in Hawaii and one in Tahiti, which will be accessed by an unmanned submarine. The submarine will send information and samples back to Kobs-Nawotniak and her team, and rock samples collected from the mission will be processed on the ISU campus, with ISU students helping analyze them.

“Our goal is to understand the chemical reactions that are supporting life,” Kobs-Nawotniak said. “And then from there we can figure out what conditions we have to have on Enceladus to support life.”

Kobs-Nawotniak has been involved with this project from its very beginning. And in fact, SUBSEA is just one of three current NASA projects within the volcanology group of the geosciences. Other projects include FINESSE, which involves using the volcanoes in the Snake River Plane as an analog for the moon, and the SALT project, which involves simulated manned missions to Mars, which are done in both Idaho and Hawaii. Kobs-Nawotniak is involved in all three projects.

According to Kobs-Nawotniak there is currently one graduate student, Angela Garcia, attached to SUBSEA, but there will likely be undergraduate students working on the projects as it goes forward.

“Idaho Space Grant has agreed to fund two students from the state of Idaho to join the deployment in November, to be a part of that, working with NASA in this manned mission to Mars simulation,” Kobs-Nawotniak said. She added that it will be a competitive application process and the rules will likely be announced soon.

“We’re really excited to be able to bring more students and get them involved,” she said. “The more we can do to keep building these connections between NASA and ISU, the more opportunities we can create for our students.”

Kobs-Nawotniak said ISU has a great connection with NASA that she hopes it will keep building and expanding.

“It’s really important, I think, to be able to build these connections and help students from all programs realize that they’ve got opportunities to be working for these world class establishments like NASA, and that ISU can be a great pipeline to help them get there,” she said. “And NASA is just really cool.”