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The Planetary Science Group at MSSL is a leading research group studying planetary bodies and systems across the Solar System. Our overarching goal is to study the space environments of planets, moons & comets, and their interactions with, and the geology and habitability of, their surfaces. As such our activities fall within five science themes that combine to provide a broad planetary science perspective that integrates both surface and space plasma physics. These include geology & geomorphology, habitability, ices & environments, planetary magnetospheres and planetary atmospheres.

We are actively engaged in studying topics such as the interactions between plasma environments, exospheres, atmospheres and climate evolution; interactions and influences between planetary surfaces and host atmospheres; insights from terrestrial life into planetary dynamic habitability; organics, biosignatures and detection strategies in the search for life.

We also produce scientific instruments for international space exploration missions, such as the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn, and then analyse the information which comes back from those instruments.

We are analysing data from some of the Solar System's most interesting scientific targets, including Saturn and its moons Titan, Enceladus and Rhea, the Moon, Mars, Venus and comets.

The group is also heavily involved in future missions to Mars, a comet, Jupiter, and other Solar System bodies. Previous missions include the Giotto mission to comets Halley and Grigg-Skjellerup. We work closely with the MSSL Space Plasma Physics and Imaging groups and the Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Department of Physics and Astronomy, and are part of the .

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