Moon Underground | Andrea Rajšić 

This proposal seeks to understand how impact events both create and reduce porosity within planetary crusts. Impact-driven modification of porosity plays a critical role in shaping the structure and evolution of ancient planetary surfaces. By establishing a predictive relationship between crater characteristics and resulting porosity distribution, we can substantially refine models of planetary crustal architecture and improve our understanding of crustal evolution. 

I am motivated to investigate how shock and tensile waves generated by impact events interact with planetary crusts. These processes fundamentally alter crustal structure, influencing porosity, permeability, and thermal evolution. By better understanding how impact-induced deformation shapes planetary materials, I hope to contribute to broader questions about planetary habitability, long-term thermal histories, and the environmental conditions that may support the origins of life.

Re-investigating the Moon’s Crustal thickness | Matt Jones

"Re-investigating the Moon's crustal thickness" funds research that will deepen our understanding of the Moon's subsurface structure. Prior models of the lunar crust use a limited set of hypotheses, so the wider range of scenarios in our work will test fundamentals of crustal structure like the nearside-farside asymmetry, lateral porosity variation, and the crustal thickness around impact basins.

This grant is a culmination of multiple lines of our previous work. We have the exciting opportunity to verify our own earlier results while testing models that have been a cornerstone of lunar science for over a decade. Whether our analyses support our hypotheses or reinforce prior models, our work will yield critical insights into lunar history and planetary evolution.