STFC funded Post-Doctoral Research Associate
You will work with Dr Penny Wozniakiewicz to investigate materials returned by NASA’s Stardust mission. The project will initially focus on the analysis of Stardust analogue craters to define a framework for the interpretation of impactor characteristics from their residues. These will then be applied to the analysis of Stardust samples to learn about comet Wild 2, and allow comparisons with other extraterrestrial samples thought to originate from comets. Results will also be applied to craters on other metal surfaces exposed to impact by micrometeoroids (cometary and asteroidal) in low Earth orbit. This work will involve use of the School’s light gas gun facility to produce analogues and internal scanning electron microscope (SEM) facilities and external transmission electron microscope (TEM) facilities to analyse samples.