top of page

Morgan Cable

 

E-mail: Morgan.L.Cable@jpl.nasa.gov


Website: https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/MCable/

​

Twitter: @starsarecalling

INTRODUCTION

 

​Morgan Cable is a Research Scientist and Group Supervisor of the Astrobiology and Ocean Worlds Group in the Planetary Science Section at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. She also serves as the Ocean Worlds Program Scientist for the Solar System Mission Formulation Office at JPL. Morgan's research focuses on organic and biomarker detection strategies, through both in situ and remote sensing techniques. She has also explored several extreme environments on Earth that serve as analogs for other places in the solar system, including the Atacama Desert in Chile, the lava fields of Iceland, and the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Morgan served as a Project Science Systems Engineer on the Cassini Mission and is currently a Co-Investigator of the Dragonfly Mission to Titan and a Collaborator on the Europa Clipper Mission.

 

ROLE IN AMEND LAB

 

Dr. Cable co-advises Maya Yanez on her Ph.D. work, specifically the relevance of acetylenotrophy for putative life on Saturn’s moon Titan. Multiple aqueous environments may exist on this moon, including a global subsurface liquid water ocean as well as possible melt pools formed from meteoritic or cometary impacts. Acetylene is one of the most common products of photochemistry in Titan’s atmosphere, and may be abundant on or under Titan’s surface. Putative ecosystems proposed for this large moon would benefit from metabolism of acetylene, and the Dragonfly Mission might be able to search for evidence of this or other biosignatures when it lands on Titan in the 2030s.

 

2010 - present

RESEARCH INTERESTS

 

  • Life and biosignature detection

  • Organic chemistry and biochemistry of ocean worlds (Enceladus, Europa, Titan, etc.)

  • Organic cryomineralogy of Titan

  • Iceland lava fields and glaciovolcanic sand seas as analogue environments for Mars

  • Microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies and instrumentation

  • Mass spectrometry of complex organic mixtures (distinguishing biotic from abiotic)

 

2010 - present

bottom of page