46th ESLAB Symposium - Formation and Evolution of Moons
ESLAB is an annual meeting organised by the European Space Agency's Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration Research and Scientific Support Department.
Understanding the formation and evolution of the natural satellites of the planets is important, as a piece of the wider puzzle concerning the formation and evolution of the Solar System as a whole. Significant progress has been achieved recently on the formation of the Moon and of the regular satellites of the giant planets. However, many questions regarding the different formation mechanisms are still unanswered.
The goal of the symposium is to review all possible scientific mechanisms for forming the moons, and for driving their subsequent evolutions, and their consequences on our current understanding of solar system formation and evolution.
Topics will include the Earth-Moon system, Mars' Phobos and Deimos, the natural satellites of the giant planets and of Pluto and dwarf planets, ring-moon interactions, and the absence of moons around Mercury and Venus. Discussions will address the contributions of past and current missions, and ground-based observations, on future science mission goals.