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UCL Department of Space and Climate Physics

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Planetary Science

A leading research group studying the planets, moons, and small bodies of our Solar System.

Saturn's moon Dione

The Planetary Science Group at MSSL is a leading research group studying planetary bodies and systems across the Solar System. Our overarching goal is to study the space environments of planets, moons & comets, and their interactions with, and the geology and habitability of, their surfaces. As such our activities fall within five science themes that combine to provide a broad planetary science perspective that integrates both surface and space plasma physics. These include geology & geomorphology, habitability, ices & environments, planetary magnetospheres and planetary atmospheres.

We are actively engaged in studying topics such as the interactions between plasma environments, exospheres, atmospheres and climate evolution; interactions and influences between planetary surfaces and host atmospheres; insights from terrestrial life into planetary dynamic habitability; organics, biosignatures and detection strategies in the search for life.

The group is analysing data from some of the Solar System's most interesting scientific targets, including Saturn and its moons Titan, Enceladus and Rhea, the Moon, Mars, Venus and comets, and are heavily involved in past, present and future missions to Mars, the Moon, comets and asteroids, Jupiter and its icy moons, Titan and other Solar System bodies. We are on the Science Teams for multiple missions such as the Canadian Lunar Rover Mission, BepiColombo and JUICE; and also build scientific instruments for missions, such as PanCam and Enfys for the 2028 Rosalind Franklin Mars Rover and the CAPS ELS spectrometer for the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn.

We work closely with the MSSL Space Plasma Physics and Imaging groups and the UCL Department of Physics and Astronomy, and are part of the Centre for Planetary Sciences at UCL/Birkbeck.

Comet McNaught over the Pacific Ocean. Image taken from Paranal Observatory in January 2007.Credits: ESO/Sebastian Deiries

Planetary Science Research

Our research covers several fields, including comets, giant planet magnetospheres and moons, and the surface of Mars.

Planetary Science Team 2024

Planetary Science Team

Find out more about our team.

Artist's impression of Cassini-Huygens. Credit: ESA/NASA

Missions / Projects

MSSL is involved in a number of previous, current and future missions to the planets in our solar system, including the Cassini mission to Saturn and the upcoming JUICE mission to Jupiter.

The Habitability Lab

The Habitability Lab

In the HabLab we combine our interests and expertise to work on understanding the habitability potential of planetary bodies within and outside our Solar System.

Publications

Planetary Science Publications

Find out more about our recent research through our Publications

Eyes On Mars

Eyes on Mars

Eyes on Mars is a public engagement project that has been funded by the Royal Astronomical Society and UK Research Institute’s Science and Technology Facility Council.

 

 

Resources:

Introduction to Planetary Science:
What is Planetary Science?
Seminar Series

Head of Planetary Science:
Dr Louisa Preston
l.preston@ucl.ac.uk