A Titan
MIT PhD candidate Una Schneck reveals how lakes behave on Saturn’s moon
Few people look to the Charles River to understand water on distant planetary bodies, but MIT planetary science PhD candidate Una Schneck does. In its winding course and varied waves, she sees the forces that control every river, lake, and sea in the solar system.
Schneck’s observations of water on Earth help her study rivers and lakes on the only other planetary body known to have them — Saturn’s moon, Titan. One of her projects focuses on waves in Titan’s lakes. It is improving our knowledge of lakes back home on Earth, knowledge that we can use to understand and prevent coastal hazards.
Schneck’s passion for space, however, did not begin with its applications for Earth. It began with “cool books” on space that her librarian father distributed around her childhood house. She read these books, looked at their images, and wanted more.
As an undergraduate at UCLA, Schneck’s passion began to take the form of research. She studied how the region around Earth that is dominated by its magnetic sphere protects the planet. She realized, “You don’t have to wonder idly. You can actually figure it out.”
After graduating, Schneck continued her research at UCLA. She then joined Taylor Perron’s lab at MIT, which studies how climate, geology, and life affect the surfaces of Earth and other planetary bodies. Within the interdisciplinary culture of the lab, her focus began to shift. Before, she says, “I was much more interested in constantly looking out.” Now, she is more interested in the connections between Earth and other planetary bodies. Specifically, the connections between Earth and Titan. Titan is a billion miles away and swathed in a thick atmosphere. At -290º Fahrenheit, hydrocarbons and nitrogen are liquid and makes up the rivers, lakes, and seas. Water ice is rock-hard and makes up the land.
Schneck’s research on Titan’s lakes is focused on whether waves can move sediment in the lakes and how that shapes their shorelines. She is creating a model that uses data about wind to calculate wave height and frequency, which she then uses to calculate sediment transport.
On Earth, researchers can directly measure characteristics of lakes and create wave models based on those measurements. Schneck has to create models for Titan that do not need those measurements. It is important work through which she says, “We can understand something fundamental about the waves themselves, and so we can then bring that understanding back to Earth.” Andrew Ashton, Schneck’s co-advisor and a coastal geomorphologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, has been inspired by her research. “Working with Una, trying to think about the generation of waves on Titan, has really made me think about my understanding of the waves on Earth and how they’re generated.” Knowing how waves on Earth are generated could help prevent coastal hazards, which are increasing with climate change.
Bit by bit, Schneck is revealing how lakes behave on Titan. She found, for example, that Titan’s waves can move sediment and that the sediment transport that her model predicts aligns with the shapes of the shorelines. She treasures these moments of clarity. “As I’ve progressed in graduate school, I feel like those moments have felt a little more solid and also a little bit more mine,” she says.
As with all modelling, Schneck has been working to find the smallest number of inputs that produce meaningful knowledge about a system. That involves a lot dead ends. “I don’t mind when things don’t work for weeks,” she says. When she has exhausted one strategy, she tries another. “She’s done a terrific job of experimenting with different approaches until we hit on the right one,” says Schneck’s advisor, Taylor Perron.
There is one challenge, however, that no amount of trial and error on her part can solve — the data quality. Her main data source has been images from the Cassini mission, which repeatedly flew by Titan while orbiting Saturn. The images are extremely low resolution, and few were taken at optimal angels.
But better data is on the horizon. Another mission, Dragonfly, is expected to launch in 2027 and arrive at Titan in 2034, “so, soon” by Schneck’s standards. Until then, Schneck will continue developing her expertise, so that when Dragonfly arrives, she will be ready.
