Making Habitable Worlds: The Formation and Evolution of Moons and Planets

Our Solar System - the Sun orbited by 8 planets and their moons, formed 4.6 Gyr ago from a cloud of dust and gas. Since then it has undergone amazing changes, from the formation of planetary bodies and their moons, the geological evolution of these bodies and the emergence of life. We will study all of these processes using a multi-pronged approach involving laboratory measurements of rocks from space (meteorites) and planetary analogue material, and analysis of images and data returned from spacecraft.

We can learn about the early stages of the solar system's history by studying meteorites that originated in rocky asteroids. Some asteroids have remained rather dormant throughout their history, and preserve the very materials that were once swirling around the newly forming Sun. We propose to study both the high-temperature formed platinum group element nuggets as well as the more fragile organic components to learn about the primordial soup from which the solar system emerged.

The presence and action of water is not limited to the Earth, asteroids and comets. Missions to Mars have revealed its surface to be strewn with water-bearing minerals but have yet to return samples that we can study in the laboratory. We are fortunate to have a selection of meteorites that originated on Mars in our collection, and we plan to study these to learn about the action of water during its recent history, using Li isotopes, a tool that has been used successfully for studying the action of water on Earth but not yet been used for Mars samples.

The planet Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos. However there is no consensus about how these objects formed. By analysing meteorites that may be analogous to the martian moons, we will help constrain their composition and therefore their origins.

An important process throughout the solar system is impacts between bodies. Looking up to the Moon one can see how vital cratering was to its history, and the same holds for all the planets in the solar system. We can measure the age of planetary surfaces from the number of craters on them. By looking at the very recent processes and changes that are happening on the Moon very recently we can make the crater counting technique more accurate.

It is a key part of our work to communicate our research to diverse audiences especially including school students, and to exchange information with our academic, governmental and industrial colleagues.