New Group Paper: Identifying primitive noble gas components in lunar ferroan anorthosites

The Earth-Moon system is thought to have formed in a volatile-poor environment relative to the outer Solar System. Despite this, measurable quantities of volatile elements have been reported in lunar samples.  These volatiles do not necessarily represent primordial (i.e., original) … Continue reading →

Meteorite finds, falls, and a bit of statistics

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Most of us in the group study meteorites, and you can get a bit obsessed with these cool space rocks! It’s easy to get lost in meteorite classifications, so I’ll try to keep things simple in the following. First, we … Continue reading →

Public Talks about Planetary Science

If you can’t get out to travel around to visit your local astronomy society or see public talks on topics in Planetary Science don’t worry – there are loads of great places online you can watch / access talks given … Continue reading →

New group paper: A new way to investigate the history of the surface of the Moon.

Zircons (tiny crystals of ZrSiO4) are found in many rocks and are widely used to measure the age of rocks. This is usually done by looking at uranium-lead (U-Pb) and lead-lead (Pb-Pb) ages, both of which rely on radioactive decay … Continue reading →

New group paper: QEMSCAN as a method of semi-automated crystal size distribution analysis: Insights from Apollo 15 mare basalts

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The journey a magma takes through the crust and during eruptive processes has been well studied on Earth in places such as in Iceland and Hawaii. However, magmatism is a fundamental planetary-scale process that occurs on many rocky bodies throughout … Continue reading →

New Group Paper: A new look at volatile elements in a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite found on the Moon

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The Moon’s surface is covered by a layer of soil, known as regolith. This is an important boundary between the Moon and the surrounding space environment, where there are records of the Moon’s interaction with the solar wind, cosmic rays … Continue reading →

Introduction to our 1st year PhD student

Hi, my name is Helen and I’m the newest PhD student to join the research group here in Manchester. My project involves trying to understand how rocky planets such as our own came to have such large quantities of carbon, … Continue reading →

Planetary Science Resources

Schools in the UK (and across much of the rest of the world) are closed for the vast majority of children, and we’re all being told to stay at home to slow the spread of the Coronavirus. As many parents … Continue reading →

The LPSC that never was!

Unfortunately due to recent global events, this year the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) was canceled, which means no hot-wings or margaritas for us! Despite the cancellation check out our twitter (@EarthSolarSystm) where we are live tweeting the talks … Continue reading →

National Student Space Conference

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Over the weekend, I attended the 32nd National Student Space Conference, at the University of Birmingham. The event takes place every March and is run by UKSEDS, the society of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space. There’s a … Continue reading →