Biography
Professor Michele Dougherty CBE FRS FRAS is Executive Chair, Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) which is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Michele is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Professor of Space Physics at Imperial College. She led unmanned exploratory missions to Saturn and Jupiter, was Principal Investigator of the magnetometer instrument onboard the Cassini mission to Saturn and is Principal Investigator of the magnetometer for the European Space Agency’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) that launched in April 2023.
Michele has been recipient of several awards during her career, including a CBE, a Royal Astronomical Society Geophysics Gold medal and the Institute of Physics Richard Glazebrook Gold Medal and Prize. In July 2025 she was appointed as the United Kingdom’s first female Astronomer Royal and from October 2025 she is President of the Institute of Physics.
Synopsis
Discoveries at the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn
One of the most important realisations that planetary scientists have come to in the last 30 years is that in the search for potential habitability in our solar system, the focus need not only be on planets close to the Sun, where water on the surface is in liquid form. Based on observations from instruments on the GALILEO spacecraft at Jupiter and the CASSINI spacecraft at Saturn, there are many potential places in our solar system where liquid water oceans may exist below the surface. Discoveries made by CASSINI scientists, as well as future discoveries waiting to be made at Jupiter’s moons with the European Space Agency mission JUICE will be described. The JUICE mission was successfully launched from Kourou in French Guiana in April 2023. The JUICE spacecraft will spend at least three years making detailed observations of the giant planet Jupiter and three of its largest moons, Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, which all show hints of hosting liquid water oceans beneath their crusts. On Earth, life thrives in the deepest, darkest parts of our oceans near hydrothermal vents. Could life similarly evolve or survive in the ocean floors of these moons?
