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PhD projects in Planetary Science for our STFC studentships 2025 are listed below.
- Unravelling the geological and organic history of the Moon and Mars (Dr Louisa Preston)
Unravelling the geological and organic history of the Moon and Mars
Primary Supervisor: Dr Louisa Preston
The planetary bodies of the solar system are geologically complex worlds on a global, regional and local scale. The Moon and Mars are dominated by primary silicate minerals and a range of mineralogical by-products together with frozen volatiles and organic molecules. The sensitive detection of the chemical composition of such jumbled mixtures of variably sized grains of rocks and minerals, dust, organic species and even water ice is of paramount importance in our assessment of the geological history and the habitability potential of Mars and the Moon. This project will utilise reflectance spectroscopy, covering the key Raman, Visible (Vis), Near-IR (NIR) and Mid-IR (MIR) spectral ranges to analyse a suite of analogue materials exposed to simulated planetary environments. This work is in preparation for the 2028 Rosalind Franklin Rover mission (RFM) and the 2026/2028 Canadian Lunar Rover Mission (LRM) and will be using emulators for the PanCam, Enfys and LAFORGE instruments on these missions.
Desired Knowledge and Skills
- Undergraduate in geology/earth science/planetary science
- Experience in spectroscopy and/or using spectroscopic data useful but not essential