Secure LoginPlanetary Atmospheres
Over the past four decades the advent of new measurements of the upper atmospheres and ionospheres of solar system planets and moons from various spacecraft missions has been astounding. In AOSS, these measurements are used to characterize the structure and dynamics of the atmospheric environments and to compare them to one another. In particular, we focus our research on Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and various moons including Io, Enceladus and Titan, as well as comets. Furthermore, we use and develop modeling tools, from simple 1-D to complex multi-dimensional frameworks. These tools are used to predict the characteristics of the planetary atmosphere and to interpret measurements once they are obtained. We study the physical, chemical, meteorological, and astrobiological processes of planets, satellites, and comets, and investigate the underlying processes that maintain the observed atmospheric structures and drive their variations over various timescales (e.g., solar cycle, seasonal, diurnal, etc.).
Faculty
- Sushil Atreya
- Stephen Bougher
- Michael Combi
- Tamas Gombosi
- Xianglei Huang
- Michael Liemohn
- Andrew Nagy
- Christopher Parkinson
- Nilton Renno
- Wilbert Skinner
- Valeriy Tenishev
- Gabor Toth
Related Web Sites
- Dr. Bougher’s planetary science research at U-M
- Electric field sensor for charged dust and sand particles (Prof. Renno)
- Planetary Science Laboratory (PSL)
- NASA’s Mars mission ‘Phoenix’
- Mars Science Laboratory at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
- US Contribution to the Rosetta Mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at NASA JPL