SSERVI Australia 2019

Contribution List

135. Australian Participation in Mars 2020

Oral

I will present an introduction of NASA's upcoming Mars 2020 rover mission, an update on it's progress, and an overview of Australian participation.

123. Automatic surface age dating of impact events on Mars

Anthony Lagain (SSTC / Curtin University)

Oral

Counting impact craters on surfaces of terrestrial bodies is currently the only way to estimate the age of a planetary surface and the duration of geological processes occurred in the past. This approach requires a tedious mapping and morphological inspection of a large number of impact craters. We created a Crater Detection Algorithm trained on Martian orbital imagery in order to compile all...

134. Comparing search techniques and terrain types on the rates of meteorite cold finds: analysing the close line and petal search techniques on the Nullarbor Plain, South Australia.

Andrew Langendam (Monash University)

Oral

Searching for meteorites in the Australian deserts has increased in the past 10 years with the inception of both the Desert Fireball Network (DFN) and Monash Meteorite Collection Teams (MMCT). These groups have different methodologies derived from the primary objective. Notably, the DFN search technique relies more on close line search techniques similar to that employed in evidence searches...

125. Constraining Ejecta Blanket Conditions of Dhofar 018 from a Single Pristine Chondrule

Ms Jennifer Mitchell (Monash University)

Oral

Introduction: A thin section of howardite Dhofar 018 preserving an pristine radial pyroxene chondrule has been analysed in order to constrain ejecta blanket conditions on asteroid 4 Vesta. This meteorite is known to contain clasts and fragments of exogenic material, including ordinary and chondrites, enstatite meteorites, and ureilites [1]. However, a single intact chondrule has yet to be...

137. Cryptic impact cratering during lunar magma ocean solidification

Katarina Miljković (Space Science and Technology Centre, Curtin University, Perth, Australia)

Oral

The lunar cratering record is traditionally used to constrain the bombardment history of both the Earth and the Moon. It was suggested from different perspectives, including asteroid dynamics, lunar Apollo samples, impact simulations, and lunar evolution modelling, that the Moon could be missing evidence of its earliest cratering record. Recent studies suggested that lunar magma ocean (LMO)...

129. Droning for Meteorites

Oral

We have devised a new way to find meteorite falls observed through the Desert Fireball Network, by using deep learning algorithms and unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). This new methodology is aimed to reduce labor spent in the field and increase the rate of meteorite recovery.

127. Fabrics in the Martian Shergottites: Implications for Emplacement on Mars

Dr Lucy Forman (Space Science and Technology Centre, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University)

Oral

Martian meteorites are mostly igneous, with only one notable exception, which still contains igneous clasts. Within the igneous samples that have not undergone brecciation, crystallographic textures can be used to infer the environment of emplacement, such as is commonly applied to terrestrial igneous rocks. Such textures have already been used to deduce the igneous setting for the Martian...

128. Grazing Fireballs and What They Can Tell Us About Our Dynamic Solar System

Mr Patrick Shober (Curtin University - Space Science & Technology Centre)

Oral

Extremely long-lived fireball events have been described previously in scientific literature, the first of which being the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 (Ceplecha, 1979; 1994). Since then, there have been several similar grazing events reported. In just four years of operation of the Desert Fireball Network (DFN), the largest fireball network in the world, we have recorded two skipping...

132. High survivability of micrometeorites on Mars: Sites with enhanced availability of limiting nutrients

Oral

NASA’s strategy in exploring Mars has been to follow the water, because water is essential for life, and it has been found that there are many locations where there was once liquid water on the surface. Now, to narrow down the search for life on a barren basalt-dominated surface, there needs to be a refocusing to a strategy of “follow the nutrients”. Here, we model the entry of metallic...

130. Kinematic detection of embedded protoplanets

Oral

We still do not understand how planets form, or why extra-solar planetary systems are so different from our own solar system.
Recent observations of protoplanetary discs have revealed rings and gaps, spirals and asymmetries. These features have been interpreted as signatures of newborn protoplanets, but the exact origin is unknown, and remains poorly constrained by direct observation.
In this...

133. Micrometeorite PGEs: Opening the window to ancient atmospheres

Oral

Friction heating of FeNi metal micrometeorites during atmospheric transit causes melting and oxidation by atmospheric gases. Due to differences in the oxidation and evaporation rates of platinum group metals, this process causes Os/Ir fractionation. The Os/Ir ratio increases as a function of extent of oxidation because Os is easily oxidised and evaporates at low temperature as an oxide,...

139. Modelling planet formation

Oral

I will discuss our attempts to understand recent imaging of protoplanetary discs taken with the ALMA telescope with 3D modelling. We now have direct evidence for large (2-3 times the mass of Jupiter) planets formed within 1-2 Myr after the birth of the star. We stand at the edge of a hugely exciting discovery space in this area, with new observations giving very direct evidence for newborn...

136. Seismic efficiency of meter-size impact craters forming on Mars

Katarina Miljković (Space Science and Technology Centre, Curtin University, Perth, Australia)

Oral

The NASA’s InSight mission has placed the seismometer SEIS less than a year ago on the surface of Mars. SEIS was designed to detect planet’s seismic activity. One of the suspected seismic sources could be meteorite impacts. It was been previously estimated that impacts forming up to 30 m diameter craters could be detected by SEIS. They are large enough yet frequent enough to occur during the...

124. Spectral Characterization of Martian meteorites: Searching for the Source Craters on Mars

Mr Kenneth Orr (Space Science and Technology Centre, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University)

Oral

There are ~130 confirmed Martian meteorites, yet their source craters on Mars still remain unknown. Locating their source craters would be extremely significant in providing geological context to the only samples from Mars that we have. Geological context is essential if we wish to fully develop our understanding of these meteorites, and therefore develop our understanding of Mars and...

131. Stellar cluster production of SLRs and their impact on planetary formation

Oral

The short-lived radionuclides (SLRs), such as ²⁶Al and ⁶⁰Fe, were the major heat sources responsible for the melting and differentiation of planetesimals in the early Solar system. The Earth and other terrestrial planets formed by accretion of such differentiated planetesimals. An interesting question is, how is heating provided by these SLRs related to the planetary...

126. Suspected seismic signals from DFN fireballs

Tanja Neidhart (Space Science and Technology Centre, Curtin University, Perth, Australia)

Oral

The Desert Fireball Network (DFN) is the world’s largest fireball camera network and is located in the Australian outback. It consists of 52 observatories, covering an area of 3 million km$^2$ aimed to detect fireballs, recover meteorites and to calculate their orbits [1]. The observatories are optimised to image 1-100 m size objects having a brightness between 0 to 15 magnitudes [1].

The aim...