Research in 60 Seconds: Exploring Lunar Landscapes

Born from the challenge of the space race, UCF was created to transform imagination into innovation and prepare people to launch humanity beyond its limits. Today, we are still where our place where our people's curiosity drives discovery, bold questions shape the future and exploration advances life on Earth.

Founded to reach the moon, we're already on our way to the next frontier. Built for liftoff, America's Space University celebrates UCF Space Week Nov. 3 -7.

Whether it's solving the world's biggest problems or investigating the potential of novel discoveries, researchers at UCF are on the edge of scientific breakthroughs that aim to make an impact. Through the Research in 60 Seconds series, student and faculty researchers condense their complex studies into bite-sized summaries so you can know how and why Knights plan to improve our world.

Name: Kerri Donaldson Hanna
Position(s): Associate professor of physics and member of UCF's Planetary Sciences Group

Why are you interested in this research?
How cool is it to be able to study planetary bodies using spacecraft and telescopic observations and with studies in the lab!

Who inspires you to conduct your research?
My research group that includes undergraduate and graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers as well as my colleagues and teammates located at research institutions from the U.S. and U.K. Working with such great people really motivates me and makes we want to keep pushing forward even when things are tough.

How does UCF empower you to do your research?
Being surrounded by such fantastic colleagues to work with on a daily basis has really empowered me and my research. And being at SpaceU where all of our cool projects are really celebrated is a lot of fun!

What major grants and honors have you earned to support your research?
I have been the principal investigator (PI) or Co-PI on several NASA projects including the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE), a project to collect terrestrial rocks similar to what we expect at the Gruithuisen domes (the Lunar-VISE landing site) and characterize them in the lab, a project to work with lunar samples collected and returned to Earth by the Apollo astronauts, and the Lunar Compact Infrared and Imaging System (L-CIRiS) which is a thermal camera that is going to the lunar south pole on an Intuitive Machines lander.

Why is this research important?
Scientific investigations from the lunar surface like what we will be doing with Lunar-VISE will help us better understand how planetary bodies form and evolve into what we observe today and will help in developing and building tools, rovers and robots for future exploration.

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