Lunar and Planetary Institute






Dr. Essam Heggy
Visiting Scientist, Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, TX 77058-1113, Phone: 281-486-2113, Fax: 281-486-2162
heggy@lpi.usra.edu
Research Background
Publications
Experimental Facility


Electromagnetic Characterization of Planetary Analogs

LPI Experimental Facility

The Lunar and Planetary Institute has a fully operational and well-calibrated sample electromagnetic characterization facility that experimentally studies the evolution of the dielectric constant and magnetic permeability as complex values for different types of planetary surfaces as a function of a variety of environmental and geophysical parameters. Our measurement facility is located in the Center for Advanced Space Studies (CASS), 3600 Bay Area Boulevard, Houston, Texas, 77058, USA, and is mainly supported through NASA PGG and MFRP funds.

The facility was created in 2003 to enforce the LPI's commitment to planetary material science research in cooperation with the astromaterial research group at the Johnson Space Center.

Our current experimental setup allows the measurement of the dielectric constant (real and imaginary part) and magnetic permeability (real and imaginary part) as functions of the following parameters:

Frequency range 1 MHz to 3 GHz
Temperature range    -100° to 150° C
Sample types solid rocks, powder, ice, ice mixtures and liquids
Sample origin terrestrial and extraterrestrial
Volatile saturation  1 to 100 %
Grain size  2 µm to 300 mm

This site will be updated regularly with the peer-reviewed results of our measurements.

For more information:
Dr. Essam Heggy, heggy@lpi.usra.edu

 

 

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Last updated
December 31, 2008