Thesiss

Much of Mars' surface is mantled by bright dust, which masks the spectral features used to interpret the mineralogy of the underlying bedrock. Despite the wealth of near-infrared (NIR) and thermal infrared data returned from orbiting spacecraft in recent decades, the detailed be…

Ice and dust play a key role in building the Solar System. During their life cycle, these primitive components are exposed to complex physical and chemical processes. Some of the earliest remnants from the formation of the early Solar nebula still remain in comets providing a wa…

This work describes the design, development and testing of a portable charge-coupled device detector system to be used for the simultaneous collection of X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence data from powdered samples. The detector was designed for both terrestrial and extra…