Earth & Solar System

05/08/2026

From fieldwork in New Mexico to the Moon - in our latest blog post Katie writes about fieldwork here on Earth helps prepare for the DIMPLE experiment that will determine the age and composition of rock samples on the Moon.
🌎➡️🌕

Image of the Ina volcanic deposit, with various mounds (dark areas) and moats (lighter areas). X denotes a potential mission landing site on the Mons Agnes mound. Image is ~3.5 km wide. Image: LR…

28/07/2026

More than 50 years after the Apollo missions, scientists are still making major discoveries from the lunar samples collected by the Apollo astronauts 🌝
Our latest blog post summarises some of the recently published new work:

More than 50 years after the Apollo missions, we are still making major scientific discoveries from the lunar samples returned to Earth. Recent advances in analytical techniques are allowing resear…

24/07/2026

Several members of the group were at the Goldschmidt Conference in Montréal, Canada last week. Now they are back from their adventures and recovered from the jetlag, we’ve some photos to share.
https://earthandsolarsystem.wordpress.com/2026/07/24/goldschmidt-conference-2026/

14/07/2026

Several members of the group are presenting their work at the Goldschmidt Conference in Montreal this week. We'll post more about their Canadian adventures soon, but in the meantime follow to find out more.
https://conf.goldschmidt.info/goldschmidt/2026/meetingapp.cgi/Home/0

06/07/2026

PhD student Chloe is working at Western University in Canada 🇨🇦 this summer, tracking fireballs ☄️
Read about her adventures in her new blog post.

Hi, my name is Chloe and I am a 2nd year PhD student in the group. This summer, I am working with the Meteor Physics Group at Western University all the way over in Ontario, Canada, working on a pr…

17/06/2026

We had a great time at the British Planetary Science Conference, last week! Thank you to the wonderful hosts, the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of St Andrews
🌕 Six members of our group gave talks on all things lunar and meteoritical
☄️ Two of our newest PhD students presented posters
🥇 Dr Thomas Barrett won the UK Planetary Forum early career award and presented a keynote talk
🥇 Flo Wilkinson won a prize for best student poster
https://earthandsolarsystem.wordpress.com/2026/06/16/british-planetary-science-conference-2026/

08/04/2026

There are some amazing photos from Artemis II on the NASA Johnson Flickr account 🌕

Explore NASA Johnson’s 63,091 photos on Flickr!

07/04/2026

If you haven't read this guest blog by one of our undergraduate students and filled out his survey, he would be really grateful of your input to help his communicating science dissertation. Thanks!

Manchester scientists at work in the lab

01/04/2026

The countdown is on! NASA Artemis is scheduled to launch later today, the first crewed mission to the in over 50 years.
The launch window opens just before 23:30 UK time, it could be a late night...

At long last, after more than 50 years, this week humans will once again be orbiting around the Moon! With the upcoming NASA Artemis II launch scheduled for April 1st, no not an April fool’s joke …

30/03/2026

Jodie is one of the new PhD students who joined our group at the start of this academic year. Most of us consider Manchester to be north, but Jodie previously studied at the University of St Andrews, so has moved a long way south! Her PhD focuses on trying to understand how meteorites are altered by heat and water.