Investigating the Organic Chemical Evolution of Enceladus Recorded by the Macromolecular Organic Matter from Its PlumeJennifer L. Eigenbrode (1), Alfonso Davila (2), Sarinah Z. Wahl (1,3), Jennifer C. Stern (1), and Andrej Grubisic (1)(1) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar System Exploration Division, Greenbelt, MD, USA; (2) NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA; (3) Center for Research and Exploration in Space Science and Technology, Southeastern Universities Research Association, Washington, DC, USACitation: Eigenbrode, J. L., Davila, A., Wahl, S. Z., Stern, J. C., and Grubisic, A. (2024), Investigating the Organic Chemical Evolution of Enceladus Recorded by the Macromolecular Organic Matter from Its Plume, Abstract 418-02 presented at AbSciCon 2024, Providence, RI, USA, 5-10 May 2024.

Field studies at terrestrial analogue sites represent an important contribution to the science of ocean worlds. The value of the science and technology investigations conducted at field analogue sites depends on the relevance of the analogue environment to the target ocean world. We accept that there are no perfect analogues for many of the unique environments represented by ocean worlds but suggest that a one-to-one matching of environmental characteristics and conditions is not crucial to the success or impact of the work. Instead, we must instead determine which processes and parameters are required to map directly to the target ocean world environment with high fidelity to address the science question or engineering challenge. Where there are discrepancies between the model and target environment, we must fully understand how those limitations impact the applicability of the study, and mitigate these where possible using alternative approaches. Here we present a two-step approach to 1) identify the most crucial processes and parameters associated with a given science question and 2) assess the fidelity of these processes and parameters at a proposed field site to those expected for the target ocean world. We demonstrate this approach in a test case evaluating three types of ocean world analogue environments with respect to a science question. Our proposed framework will not only enhance the scientific rigor of field research but also provide access to a broader range of field sites relevant to ocean worlds processes, enabling a greater diversity of ocean and geological science researchers.