Our department has a number of associated research groups active in planetary science, primarily studying the upper atmospheres and ionospheres of planets and moons.

We use ground-based telescopes, including a dedicated facility at the McDonald Observatory in Texas, sub-orbital rocket experiments, space-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, and spacecraft, including Mars Express and MAVEN, to explore these environments. We also develop computational models to test theories for how these environments behave.

Faculty with Related Research

Research Interests:

planetary atmospheres, UV astrophysics, FUV instruments for remote observations

Research Interests:

Research Interests:

star-terrestrial planet interactions in our solar system and beyond; magnetic reconnection and turbulence; wave-particle interaction; physics-informed machine learning; high intensity laser-plasma interaction

Research Interests:

space plasma waves, Earth’s magnetospheric physics, solar-wind magnetosphere coupling, energetic particle precipitation, Jovian magnetosphere and aurora

Research Interests:

ionospheric physics, space physics, thermosphere/ionosphere plasma irregularities

Research Interests:

space physics, planetary atmospheres, observations and models

Research Interests:

modeling and observations of planetary atmospheres, with a focus on the upper atmospheres of the giant planets and on the coupling between atmospheres and the space environment

Research Interests:

atmospheres of Jupiter’s moons, comets, Mercury and our own Moon

Research Interests:

the behaviour of the martian upper atmosphere and ionosphere, analysis of accelerometer data