Education

Below you will find examples of MSc projects that I offer as lecturer at the TU Delft. If you are enrolled at TU Delft, please have a look at the Brightspace page of the Space Exploration profile of the Master track Spaceflight. There you will find the full summary of each available project.

Ongoing projects

  • Lithosphere unloading and subglacial volcanism near the north pole on Mars. (MSc thesis)
  • Aerodynamic behaviour of meteorites during their dark flight. (MSc thesis)
  • Morphometrics of regmaglypts based on 3D models of fusion-crusted ordinary chondrites (Honours programme)
  • Booming dunes: acoustic emissions from sand avalanches on active dunes on Mars (MSc thesis)
  • Erosion from rainfall on Titan based on analogue laboratory experiments. (MSc thesis)

Available MSc topics offered at BrightSpace

  • Rootless volcanic cones on Mars and Icelandic analogues (Europlanet)
  • Orientation of sand grains by wind flow using close-up cameras. Wind tunnel in Denmark, field campaign, image processing, atmospheric density. (Europlanet)
  • Design of the planetary wind tunnel ‘ALPACA’.
  • Using 3-D models of meteorites to explore asteroid rock densities.

Other topics that can be discussed (not listed on BrightSpace)

  • Comparing spectral signatures of Dutch meteorites using imaging spectroscopy and powdered integrating-sphere reflectance spectroscopy.
  • Using drones for the search and recovery of meteorites on ice and land.
  • 4D study of soil disturbance created by meteorite impacts.
  • Protoplanetary aeolian accretionary phenomena.

Outreach and visibility

Outreach and visibility of your MSc research project is valuable. So, students can receive a page on this webpage (www.planeetonderzoeker.nl/namestudent) to help showcase their ongoing work. (note, ‘planeetonderzoeker’ is ‘planetary scientist’ in Dutch).

Academic (guest-) lectures:

  • Planetaire grenzen: Op zoek naar een reserveplaneet voor de aarde? Part of the course: Toekomstige uitdagingen en innovatieve oplossingen, BSc Future Planet Studies, University of Amsterdam (2016)
  • Impact cratering: physics, geology and associated Hazards. Part of the course: Natuurrampen en toekomstige bedreigingen, BSc Future Planet Studies, University of Amsterdam (2012-2017)
  • Gone with the wind: aeolian landforms and phenomena. Part of the course:  Soil and Landscape Degradation, MSc Earth Sciences, University of Amsterdam (2018-2019)
  • Terrestrial inspiration for understanding Mars. WUR lectures, Wageningen University. (Watch video)

Last edited: June 2021