University of Idaho graduate student Alex Patthoff and his wife went looking for a new direction — and they found one in Moscow.
Patthoff, who studies geological studies, has spent his time at UI with professor Simon Kattenhorn working to discover evidence of liquid water on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Thanks to a string of fortunate events, Patthoff said he has made a discovery that is catching attention.
“Just kind of very serendipitously, I was looking for grad schools and I came across Simon’s (Kattenhorn) website on the Idaho webpage and my wife saw that they had a legal writing position open at the law school,” Patthoff said. “So we both applied — she got accepted to the job, I got accepted to grad school and we just felt this is probably too good to be true so we packed up the car and drove 2,500 miles away.”
The West Virginia native was looking for a grad school just as his future adviser Kattenhorn received grant funding to hire a graduate student.
“I built the foundations of a research project in my head and wrote a proposal to NASA and it was funded first time which is sometimes difficult,” Kattenhorn said.
After 10 years of studying Europa, a moon of Jupiter, Kattenhorn shifted his attention to Enceladus where plumes of water were discovered coming out of fractures on the moon’s southern pole.
Patthoff followed Kattenhorn’s advice and began studying the moon’s fractures more than three years ago.
Patthoff said study of the fractures and larger fractures known as “Tiger Stripes” helped him determine the ones around the southern pole were about the same age, which suggests it is a rather young surface and these fractures may have caused a shift of the outer surface.
This shifting suggests that a body of water is hidden beneath the outer shell that would move the surface and create the fractures. Patthoff and Kattenhorn’s studies suggest that not only is there water underneath the surface but also that it expands the entire moon.
“What our study is really trying to illustrate is that not only is their liquid water beneath the outer shell of Enceladus but it’s actually global in extent,” Patthoff said.
Patthoff was able to study the surface on Enceladus because of the spacecraft Cassini, which was sent from NASA to take pictures of the surface and then send those images online for anyone to see.
By studying those pictures, Patthoff said he has been able to make his discoveries and said that the fact that water resides on moons could have great implications someday.
“Water implies that there is a lot of energy in that area, it implies that there could be life there, it implies that there is a mechanism for additional stresses to be imposed on the moon,” Patthoff said.
These discoveries have led Patthoff and Kattenhorf to recognition on a national level. Patthoff received the Pellas-Ryder Award for his research article “A Fracture History on Enceladus Provides Evidence for a Global Ocean.”
Patthoff has also received a post-doctoral fellowship from NASA to work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
Kattenhorn said while he believes that it is an important discovery, it is not without critics.
“It’s controversial — it’s not to say that everybody is out there going, ‘You’re right, you’re right, there’s a global ocean down there.'”
Patthoff said he was surprised when he found out about his recent accolades, but grateful for the awards and said space has always been an interest of his since he was little.
“I was always that kid that was really interested in watching space shuttles launch and always interested in space,” Patthoff said.
Jacob Dyer can be reached at [email protected]