Planetary Materials In and Outside the Solar System
In the past few decades, the fields of planetary science have seen tremendous growth by exploring new worlds both inside and outside the Solar System. Future missions will reveal exciting discoveries and potentially assess the habitability of these new worlds. Given the range of exotic conditions on these bodies, a diversity of planetary materials exist and play important roles in shaping various atmospheric/surface processes, atmospheric-surface interactions, and habitability in and outside the solar system. I will talk about my journey as an experimentalist studying planetary materials on Titan and how my Titan work has inspired me to explore materials and processes on exoplanets from a unique perspective. I will first talk about my exploratory work on Titan’s sand transport and dune formation and how that would help the upcoming Dragonfly mission to Titan. I will then cover two aspects of my exoplanet research inspired by my Titan works, 1) identifying solid/liquid surfaces on exoplanets without direct detection; 2) how clouds and hazes work in the exotic exoplanet atmospheres.
