Sample Selection & Handling for Ocean worlds and Wostenholme fjord Under-ice Platforms
Europa and other icy moons host liquid oceans beneath their frozen, surface shells. Understanding how ice, water, and life interact in Wolstenholme Fjord helps us prepare for missions that will one day explore those alien seas. By testing technologies and strategies under the ice in Greenland, we can develop the tools needed to search for signs of life under the ice and beyond Earth.
In northwest Greenland, Wolstenholme Fjord is locked in sea ice for most of the year and fed by three marine-terminating glaciers. Beneath its ice cover, subglacial plumes carry nutrients and gases into the fjord, creating hidden ecosystems that thrive in the dark. These dynamic ice–ocean interactions make Wolstenholme one of the best places on Earth to study environments similar to those we expect on icy ocean worlds.
SSHOWUP is advancing the future of ocean world exploration by:
Developing persistent under-ice robotics, including the Icefin vehicle and a new ice-anchored base station.
Creating the first under-ice mass spectrometer and fluid handling system for detecting key biosignatures.
Investigating how glaciers, plumes, and microbial communities interact to shape under-ice ecosystems.
Together, these goals push the boundaries of both Earth polar science and planetary exploration.
Project SSHOW UP (Sample Selection & Handling for Ocean Worlds and Wolstenholme Under-ice Platforms) is supported by a NASA PSTAR program grant, PI B.E. Schmidt. Field work in Pituffik Space Base, Wolstenholme Fjord, Greenland was supported by NASA, NSF, and the many teams at PSB. We’d like to thank the Pituffik Space Base staff, America, Danish and Greenlandic; the Innussuk staff, and Polar Field Services for their assistance in the success of this program.
