Michael Bramble Email & Phone Number

I'm a scientist who studies the composition and chemistry of the Earth and planetary bodies across the Solar System. I work at the nexus of laboratory experimentation and spacecraft remote sensing. My primary tool is spectroscopy, where I divide the light being reflected or emitted off planetary surfaces into its constituent parts to identify the composition and chemistry. I am interested in the geological study of the solid bodies in our Solar System, from the icy ocean worlds, to the planets Mars and Earth, and the asteroids. I’m particularly interested in using laboratory experiments paired with remote sensing to characterize and understand mineralogical and geochemical processes active on planetary surfaces. I am interested in the geological evolutionary history of the Solar System, and how this history of changes can be constrained through the advancement of analytical techniques applied via remote sensing and laboratory experiments. I am interested in how the extreme environmental conditions of remote environments alter the information we measure with spacecraft, aircraft, and telescopes. I replicate these extreme environments are replicated in the laboratory and this includes mimicking the vacuum of space, the coldness of an airless body, and the high radiation present elsewhere in the Solar System. I then use these well-controlled laboratory experiments to probe planetary spacecraft data to derive an accurate interpretation of the composition of a planetary surface.I am also interested in the development of spacecraft instruments in the geological sciences and the development of novel, quantitative analytical techniques to probe the data these instruments record. I have performed research on the whole orrery of planetary bodies, including Earth, Mars, ocean worlds, Ceres and asteroids, meteorites, terrestrial planetary analogs, the Moon, and Phobos and Deimos. Silently, they orbit the Sun, waiting.