Solar System PhD Projects
PhD Research Projects on offer in our Solar System Group:
The LSST view of the activity of comets
Comets are some of the most unaltered building blocks of planet formation – their properties can give us a window on the Solar System’s protoplanetary disc. To understand just how pristine they are, we need to better understand their evolution as they are eroded by sublimation of ices when near the Sun. The Vera C. Rubin observatory’s LSST is a major new sky survey that will begin in 2025, that will scan the sky every few nights and will be capable of following the evolution of activity right around the orbit of short period comets (like the Rosetta target, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko). This project will build on previous work analysing the activity patterns of 67P from dedicated campaigns to look at the whole population of comets, to understand how differences and similarities are related to their formation and evolution.
Under the Astrobiology projects, see also:
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Investigating the desiccation limits to life on Earth and elsewhere - Prof Charles Cockell
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The Exotic Worlds of exo-Titans -Dr Sarah Rugheimer
Under the Exoplanet projects, see also:
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Characterising hot and cold exocomets in the Beta Pictoris system during the PLATO mission -Dr Cyrielle Opitom, Prof Colin Snodgrass, and Dr Matthew Kenworthy (Leiden)