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We address the thermal history of the Earth after the Moon-forming impact, taking tidal heating and thermal blanketing by the atmosphere into account. The atmosphere sets an upper bound of ~100 W/m^2 on how quickly the Earth can cool. The…
Due to its absence of an atmosphere and relative geological inertness, the Moon's surface records past impacts of objects from the Solar system and beyond. We examine the prospects for discovering extrasolar material near the lunar surface…
Global and mesoscale models represent the background (slowly varying) winds on Mars, but short timescale wind variability is not explicitly represented. The local wind erosion and dust deposition model can be useful for more accurate local…
This manuscript analyzes lunar lander soil erosion models and trajectory models to calculate how much damage will occur to spacecraft orbiting in the vicinity of the Moon. The soil erosion models have considerable uncertainty due to gaps in…
Space weathering is an important surface process occurring on the Moon and other airless bodies, especially those that have no magnetic field. The optical effects of the Moon's space weathering have been largely investigated in the…
Detecting massive satellites of extrasolar planets has now become feasible, which led naturally to questions about their habitability. In a previous study we presented constraints on the habitability of moons from stellar and planetary…
Celestial bodies such as the Moon and Mars are mainly covered by loose, granular soil, a notoriously challenging terrain to traverse with (wheeled) robotic systems. Here, we present experimental work on traversing steep, granular slopes…
In the backdrop of escalating ambitions for space exploration, particularly with programs like Artemis aiming for a sustainable human presence on the Moon, the issue of efficient and reliable energy transmission has become a critical…
This paper shows how the exposure of the Moon to the Earth's plasmasheet is subject to decadal variations due to lunar precession. The latter is a key property of the Moon's apparent orbit around the Earth - the nodes of that orbit precess…
We have studied several field geotechnical test instruments for their applicability to lunar soil simulants and analog soils. Their performance was evaluated in a series of tests in lunar simulants JSC-1A, NU-LHT-2M, and CHENOBI each…
Since the Apollo program or earlier it has been widely believed that the lunar regolith was compacted through vibrations including nearby impact events, thermal stress release in the regolith, deep moon quakes, and shallow moon quakes.…
The observed presence of water molecules in the dayside lunar regolith was an unexpected discovery and remains poorly understood. Standard thermophysical models predict temperatures that are too high for adsorbed water to be stable. We…
Aeolian sediment transport is observed to occur on Mars as well as other extraterrestrial environments, generating ripples and dunes as on Earth. The search for terrestrial analogues of planetary bedforms, as well as environmental…
Sputtering by solar wind ions is a key process driving the ejection of high-energy particles into the exospheres of airless bodies like asteroids, Mercury and the Moon. In view of upcoming missions which will deliver new in-situ data on…
Lunar dust particles are generated by hypervelocity impacts of interplanetary micron-meteoroids onto the surface of the Moon, which seriously threatens the security of explorations. Studying the lunar dust dynamics helps to understand the…
Understanding the interplay between micrometeoroid impacts and solar wind irradiation is crucial for interpreting lunar surface evolution. Using reactive molecular dynamics simulations and surface binding energy (SBE) analyses, this study…
The habitable zone for exomoons with Earth-like properties is a non-trivial manifold, compared to that of Earth-like exoplanets. The presence of tidal heating, eclipses and planetary illumination in the exomoon energy budget combine to…
Given the renewed scientific interest in lunar exploration missions, complete understanding of lunar near surface environment and its exosphere under different conditions is of paramount importance. Lunar exosphere has been extensively…
With humans returning to the Moon under the Artemis program, understanding and mitigating effects from Plume Surface Interactions (PSI) will be essential for the protection of personnel and equipment on the Moon. To help characterize the…
Dust and sand motion are a common sight on Mars. Understanding the interaction of atmosphere and Martian soil is fundamental to describe the planet's weather, climate and surface morphology. We set up a wind tunnel to study the lift of a…