Planetary science

The Arabia Terra province on Mars, centered at 25° E, 5° N and covering approximately 1 × 107 km2, contains some of the most heavily-cratered, low-lying terrain on Mars. The great number of craters indicates its significant age, > 3.5 billion years. During this time Arabia Terra…

With the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the first light of thirty-meter class ground based telescopes in the 2020s, and plans in the works for a next-generation space-based telescope designed from the outset to probe exoplanet habitability and biosigna…

This thesis is composed of two distinct themes. The first concerns the chemical structure of Venus's atmosphere. Venus's atmosphere can be roughly separated into lower and middle regions separated by a thick cloud deck. When modeling the chemistry of Venus' atmosphere past resea…

This thesis presents a search for trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) using data from the Dark Energy Survey. This population of minor bodies orbiting past Neptune is a relic of the formation history of the Solar System, with the current observed orbital distribution of these planete…