Studying the planets and solid bodies of the Solar System - and beyond
Our research tackles a great many pressing scientific questions. We explore the dynamics of Earth, survey alien landforms on Mars and other rocky bodies, determine the compositions of dust grains preserved in meteorites and formed in giant, long-dead stars, and probe the processes and phenomena we see throughout our wider patch of space to reveal the secrets of the cosmos around us.
Current and recent projects focus on:
- the Chicxulub impact that wiped out the dinosaurs;
- the resurfacing of Venus and possibility of life on Mars;
- the cosmochemistry of meteorites;
- the role of catastrophic flooding on Earth and Mars; and
- how Earth's oceans have changed through time (in collaboration with our Climate and environment work).
Overall, our research reveals the workings of global systems in the past, present and, by extrapolation, the future, to understand why planetary bodies are the way they are and how their habitats and inhabitants came to be.
If you are interested in one of the projects listed below, we encourage you to contact the primary project supervisor or the alternative contact person for further information.
Current projects
Automated Crater Detection and Classification with Machine Learning [Info Sheet - Collins ACDC]
Supervisors: Prof Gareth Collins, Dr Ben Moseley, Dr Joel Davis
Decoding inner solar system bombardment from crater populations [Info Sheet - Collins Crater Scaling]
Supervisors: Prof Gareth Collins
Impact Processing of Planetary Crust [Info Sheet - Collins Impact Porosity]
Supervisors: Prof Gareth Collins, Mark Wieczorek (IPGP)
Simulating impacts onto Saturn’s icy moons and rings [Info Sheet - Kegerreis Ice Impacts]
Supervisors: Dr Jacob Kegerreis, Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Paul Estrada (NASA)
Simulating impacts onto Earth: from enabling early life to causing extinction [Info Sheet - Kegerreis Earth Impacts]
Supervisors: Dr Jacob Kegerreis, Professor Gareth Collins, Dr Vincent Eke (Durham University)
Shaking Worlds: Exploring Planetary Quakes and Deep Interiors [Info Sheet - Kim Planetary]
Supervisors: Dr Doyeon Kim
Developing time-series InSAR for understanding changes to the ground surface, subsurface, biosphere and environment [Info Sheet - Mason Time-Series InSAR]
Supervisors: Dr Philippa Mason, Dr James Lawrence (Civil Engineering, Imperial College London), Professor Richard Ghail (Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway UK)
Understanding surface processes on Venus: in support of the EnVision mission [Info Sheet - Mason Surface Processes Venus]
Supervisors: Dr Philippa Mason, Professor Richard Ghail (Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway UK), Dr Gareth Roberts
Quantifying how earthquakes and impacts are magnetically recorded by rocks and meteorites [Info Sheet - Muxworthy mitchell stress]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, and Prof. Tom Mitchell (UCL)
Determining ancient field intensities from chemical remanent magnetisations in rocks and meteorites [Info sheet - Ancient Field Intensities]
Supervisors: Prof. Adrian Muxworthy, Prof. Dominik Weiss, and Dr. David Heslop (ANU, Canberra)
Tracing the Origin of Volatiles for the Earth, Moon and Mars – New Constraints from Isotopic Analyses of Meteorites [Info Sheet - Rehkamper Origin_Volatiles]
Supervisor: Professor Mark Rehkämper
Preserved Records of Life on Mars [Info Sheet - Sephton remove mars]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton, Dr Jonathan Watson
Meteorites and their organic records of the early solar system [Info Sheet - Sephton remove meteorite]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton, Dr Jonathan Watson
Life Detection at Jupiter’s Icy Moon Europa [Info sheet - Life Detection at Europa]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton, Dr Jonathan Watson, Prof Hunter Waite (Alabama)
Artificial Intelligence for Life Detection at Europa [Info sheet - AI Techniques for Europa]
Supervisors: Professor Mark A. Sephton, Dr Jonathan Watson, Prof Jonathan Carter, Prof Hunter Waite (Alabama)