Planetary Science

• Mercury Surface Science group

• Mars Science group

• Small Solar System bodies group

• Comparative planetology, including geology, impact craters, spectroscopy/mapping, planetary rings, atmospheres, ionospheres, meteors and astrobiology, with emphasis on the use of data from the Mars Express, Venus Express, Smart-1, Cassini-Huygens, Demeter, Bepi Colombo and Chandrayaan-1 missions as well as from other relevant facilities

  Detlef Koschny, Olivier Witasse, Johannes Benkhoff, Luigi Colangeli, Håkan Svedhem,
  Dmitri Titov, Jorge Vago, Rita Schulz, Elliot Sefton-Nash, Bernard Foing [ESTEC]
  Patrick Martin, Nicolas Altobelli[ESAC]​​​​​​

• The physics and chemistry of terrestrial planets and minor bodies through numerical modelling of their interior and near surface layers in order to better understand their formation and thermal evolution

  Johannes Benkhoff, Jorge Vago, Olivier Witasse, Joe Zender [ESTEC]

• Petrology and astrobiology analysis of mineral and organic samples exposed in Earth orbit or from Moon-Mars-planetary simulated analogues

  Bernard Foing [ESTEC]

• Research on comets (photometry, evolution), asteroids, Trans-Neptunian Objects

  Mark Kidger [ESAC]

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