Canadensys Aerospace will design and build Canada’s first lunar rover and Western planetary geologist Gordon “Oz” Osinski will serve as principal investigator and scientific lead.
Department of Earth Sciences
Newly discovered ‘glaciers’ could be key to human survival in future Mars missions
Western planetary geologists have discovered glacier-like features below the Martian surface in an area that is relatively flat – perfect for future Mars landings.
Ancient beavers cut trees for food first, not to build dams
By studying the wood-cutting behaviour of ancient beavers that once roamed the Canadian high Arctic, an international team of scientists has discovered that tree predation – feeding on trees and harvesting wood – evolved in these now-extinct rodents long before...
Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers
A large number of the valley networks scarring Mars’ surface were carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to a new study by Western and University of British Columbia researchers. The findings...
International collaboration develops model for forecasting ‘largest expected’ earthquakes
An international research team led by Western University has developed a new methodology for forecasting the magnitude of the largest possible earthquake within a series of seismic events like the deadly ones that shook Kumamoto, Japan in 2016. The Kumamoto...
Western University-led team selected by Canadian Space Agency to study Mars minerals
Western University-led team selected by Canadian Space Agency to study Mars minerals “Planetary Instrument Concept Study” to develop a “Miniaturized In-situ X-Ray Diffractometer for Mineralogical Characterization of Planetary Surfaces (ISXRD)” which will focus on Mars...
Western planetary scientists assist in capturing first full-colour image of NASA InSight using HiRISE space camera
Houston, there is no problem here. Eric Pilles assisted in capturing – for the first-time ever – extraordinary and highly significant scientific images of the NASA InSight robotic lander using HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment), the camera currently...
Western planetary scientist readies for Mars mission with exciting new surface images
The Mars Camera, officially known as CaSSIS (Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System), aboard the European Space Agency's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) captured its first high resolution images of the Red Planet last week. The Swiss-led camera worked almost...
New discovery shatters previous beliefs about Earth’s origin
A new study led by Western University's all-star cosmochemist Audrey Bouvier proves that the Earth and other planetary objects formed in the early years of the Solar System share similar chemical origins – a finding at odds with accepted wisdom held by scientists for...