About
53
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Introduction
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 2016 - present
Position
- Scientist SE
Description
- Geology of Moon & Mars using Remote Sensing & Laboratory Reflectance Spectroscopy of Planetary Analogues
January 2010 - January 2016
Position
- Scientist SD
Description
- Geology of the Moon & Mars using Remote Sensing and Laboratory Reflectance Spectroscopy of Planetary Analogues
Education
July 2010 - November 2014
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
Field of study
- Geology of Lowell Crater Region on the Moon: Analysis of Remote Sensing Data
Publications
Publications (53)
Aubrites are rare meteorites from highly reduced differentiated parent bodies. The Rantila meteorite was recovered soon after falling on 17 August 2022 at Rantila and Ravel villages in Gujarat state, India. We report the petrography, mineralogy, chemical composition, oxygen‐ and chromium‐isotope compositions, along with reflectance spectroscopy, al...
Sodium (Na), potassium (K), and sulfur (S) abundances are key to understanding the Moon’s geochemistry and volatile inventory. Here we conduct an assessment comparing the Pragyan rover’s Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) measured abundances of these elements at the Chandrayaan-3 southern high-latitude highland site with their abundances from...
Meteorites, remnants of asteroids that successfully survive their passage through the Earth's atmosphere, hold critical information about the evolution and history of the solar system. Traditional methods of analyzing these rare and precious specimens often involve destructive geochemical techniques, which deplete the sample and limit subsequent an...
Chandrayaan-3 is an upcoming lunar mission of India aimed at soft-landing and carrying out first-ever in situ investigations at a high-latitude location on the Moon. Chandrayaan-3 consists of a propulsion module, a lander and a rover, that carry a set of payloads for conducting in-situ science experiments. In this work, contextual characterization...
This study presents the first geological map of the Chandrayaan-3 mission landing area using high resolution remote sensing datasets. The geological map reveals the spatial distribution of three distinct terrain types within the landing area that includes high-relief rugged terrain and smooth plains, and low-relief smooth plains. The Chandrayaan-3...
The elemental composition of the lunar surface provides insights into mechanisms of the formation and evolution of the Moon1,2. The chemical composition of lunar regolith have so far been precisely measured using the samples collected by the Apollo, Luna and Chang’e 5 missions, which are from equatorial to mid-latitude regions3,4; lunar meteorites,...
The cosmos, replete with the elemental diversity of Earth, continues to cloak the existence of extraterrestrial life in mystery. Vital to the search for life is the identification of environments that can support biological processes. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the conditions necessary for life, with a special focus on extremophil...
The cosmos, replete with the elemental diversity of Earth, continues to cloak the existence of extraterrestrial life in mystery. Vital to the search for life is the identification of environments that can support biological processes. This review synthesizes current knowledge on the conditions necessary for life, with a special focus on extremophil...
India’s third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3, has success-fully deployed a lander and a rover at a high-latitude location on the Moon to conduct in situ scientific studies that will potentially improve our understanding on the primary crust formation and subsequent modification processes. While the primary landing site (PLS) was situated at 69.367621°S...
Space is full of immense possibilities, it is a treasure of every element that exists on Earth today, yet life has not yet been discovered anywhere beyond the Earth. It is essential to have a favorable environment for life to flourish and survive. To discover life, it is also necessary to explore an environment suitable and favorable for life. Thro...
Australe North (35.5°S, 96°E) is a pre-Nectarian impact basin north of Mare Australe, first identified using the GRAIL data. It does not show clear topographic signatures typical of any large impact structure on the Moon. However, results from GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) mission suggested the presence of a ∼ 880 km wide basin w...
India's third Moon mission Chandrayaan 3 will deploy a lander and a rover at a high latitude location of the Moon enabling us to carry out first ever in-situ science investigations of such a pristine location that will potentially improve our understanding on primary crust formation and subsequent modification processes. The primary landing site (P...
Chandrayaan-3 is an upcoming lunar mission of India aimed at soft-landing and carrying out first-ever in situ investigations at a high-latitude location on the Moon. Chandrayaan-3 consists of a propulsion module, a lander and a rover, that carry a set of payloads for conducting in-situ science experiments. In this work, contextual characterization...
The Marginis-Smythii region of the eastern limb of the Moon is a unique geological setting with the presence of equally widespread volcanism both inside and outside of an impact basin. Mare Marginis (13.3°N, 86.1°E) is a large mare deposit lying north of the pre-Nectarian Smythii Basin (13.3°N, 86.1°E). The basalts from Mare Marginis are deposited...
The article is on new meteorite fall in Gujarat, India in 2022. Classified as aubrite
The Martian caves have revived interest in the field of subsurface exploration because they are the potential destinations for future human habitats and astrobiological research. There are many pits on Mars, but some of them look like collapsed cave roofs. These special pits are formed by the collapse of the surface materials into the subsurface vo...
Introduction: Global maps of Mg and Al along with the elements Fe, Ti, and Ca are important compo-sitional indicators of different highland and mare rocks. The global mapping of major lunar refractory elements provides information about the petrological characteristics of the Moon [1, 2]. Reflectance spec-troscopy in the UV-VIS-NIR wavelength range...
The Pre-Nectarian Crüger-Sirsalis Basin (centered at 16.0°S, 293.0°E; ~ 475 km in diameter) is a primarily degraded and obscured impact basin on the Moon. This study presents the first geological description of the Crüger-Sirsalis Basin using remote sensing datasets from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), Chandrayaan-1, and Kaguya missions. An inn...
We present the first Shallow Radar (SHARAD) based observations of subsurface reflections within an unnamed crater centered at 21.0° S, 150.6° W. It is situated south of the Mangala Fossa and Mangala Valles, a major fluvial outflow channel system. We informally name the crater Mangala crater for this paper. In contrast with adjacent Tharsis lava flo...
The Martian caves have revived interest in the field of speleology because they are the potential destinations for future human residences and astrobiological research. The skylights are formed by the collapse of the surface materials into the subsurface void spaces. Hence, they are the doors to access the subsurface caves. The signature of life is...
The Grimaldi Basin, centered at (5.2° S, 68.6° W), is a ~400 km diameter highly degraded, Pre-Nectarian double-ring impact structure on the Moon located near the western edge of the Oceanus Procellarum. Hyperspectral data from Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M³), FeO estimates from Kaguya Lunar Multiband Imager (MI) data and TiO2 estimates from WAC 321/415...
Lunar swirls are high albedo regions with curvilinear shape, found to be associated with magnetic anomalies on the Moon surface that occur in both mare and highland terrains. A detailed spectral analysis of swirls may help us to understand space weathering modification processes and might help to correlate it with a specific mode of swirl formation...
ISRO's lunar orbiter-lander-rover mission Chandryaan-2 is scheduled to be launched in the mid of 2019. In this contribution, we have carried out detailed geological characterization of the prime landing site (70.9°S, 22.8°E) of the Chandrayaan-2 lander – “Vikram”. The proposed landing site is located amidst the nearside lunar highlands at high sout...
ISRO's lunar orbiter-lander-rover mission Chandryaan-2 is scheduled to be launched in the mid of 2019. In this contribution, we have carried out detailed geological characterization of the prime landing site (70.9°S, 22.8°E) of the Chandrayaan-2 lander – “Vikram”. The proposed landing site is located amidst the nearside lunar highlands at high sout...
Mars is the only extraterrestrial body which could host primitive lifeforms and also has the potential to host a human base in the near future. Towards fulfilling these objectives, several remote sensing issions and rover based missions have been sent to Mars. Still, confirmation of existing or extinct life on this planet in any form has not been a...
Mars is the only extraterrestrial body which could host primitive lifeforms and also has the potential to host a human base in the near future. Towards fulfilling these objectives, several remote sensing issions and rover based missions have been sent to Mars. Still, confirmation of existing or extinct life on this planet in any form has not been a...
Chandrayaan-2 mission will be the third giant leap by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in their continued planetary exploration program. It is planned to be launched in early 2019. This mission will be realized in three phases that includes orbiting, landing and roving. Successful implementation of the Chandrayaan-2 lander (named ‘Vikr...
Surface topography, surface morphology and crater chronology studies have been carried out for the Lowell crater region (occupying ~198×198 km2 in the northwestern quadrant of the Orientale basin) using Kaguya TC-DTM, LRO-WAC data, and Chandrayaan-1 M3-750 nm image, to characterize and date Lowell impact event and to identify and assess the geologi...
Space exploration missions of planetary bodies in our solar system have provided new insights to understand their formation and evolutionary processes that such bodies have undergone leading to their current geological state. Remote sensing from orbiter mission has helped in identifying surface features, delineating surface topography, mapping surf...
Chandrayaan-1, the polar Lunar orbiter mission of Indian Space Research Organization, successfully carried out study of Moon’s environment and surface processes for a period of about nine months during 2008–2009. The results obtained by the mission established (i) A tenuous but active hydrosphere (ii) Volcanically active and geologically dynamic Mo...
It is generally believed that the Moon became internally dead ~1 b.y. from the present, and only old ({tab}1 b.y.) volcanic flows forming largely the mare basins are known to occur. The old volcanic landforms stand largely obliterated and flows studded with impact craters. However, recent findings have indicated global presence of young thrust faul...
A digital terrain model (DTM) is a regularly spaced raster grid of elevation values of a surface terrain. It is of two types-relative and absolute. In relative DTM, the elevations shown are only the relative relief of features not the exact height from the reference datum whereas in the absolute DTM the exact height is represented. The relative DTM...
Topographical, morphological and spectral reflectance studies have been carried out for a distinct resurface event inside Copernican aged Lowell crater (13.00°S 103.40°W), Orientale basin, using high resolution TC, MI-VIS, LROC-NAC, and M3 data from Kaguya, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Chandrayaan-1 missions. The resurfacing is predominan...
Principal component transformation is a standard technique for multi-dimensional data analysis. The purpose of the present article is to elucidate the procedure for interpreting PC images. The discussion focuses on logically explaining how the negative/positive PC eigenvectors (loadings) in combination with strong reflection/absorption spectral beh...
L- 2 M^3 data have revealed that young basalts near Litchenberg crater
may have slightly higher olivine content than the ones near Aristarchus
crater.
M^3 derived spinel distribution and litho-associations in non-mare units
of Orientale basin favor its origin from melt-wall rock reaction during
ancient magmatism.
Extensive exposures of spinel rich rocks have been found inside Lowell
Crater (12.9°S 103.1°W) and in other adjoining areas of Montes
Rook, Orientale basin, indicating their pervasive presence in the crust
at depth prior to the Orientale impact.
In this study, we present the results from remote sensing data of very high resolution (both spatial and spectral) for localized dark mantle deposits (LDMD) around crater Beaumont-L in the northwestern part of Mare Nectaris from Chandrayaan-1.
Results of an integrated analysis of the central peak of Tycho from TMC data onboard Chandrayaan-1, NAC images of LROC, and Multi-band Imager (MI) data from SELENE are presented to understand processes involved in multiphase modifications of the central peak of Tycho.
Mafic exposures at topographically high locations surrounding Apollo 17 landing site have been studied using imaging sensors onboard Chandrayaan -1 (TMC, HySI, and M3). Compositionally, most of them have been found to be noritic.
Regions shielded by maximum magnetic field intensity in the proto type swirl Reiner Gamma and the one near Airy Crater, have been investigated for maturity trends. Both the cases show differences (though of reversed nature) from the trend seen in nearby unshielded areas.
Central peaks of 24 lunar craters, having mafic rocks, were studied to estimate their average titanium content and infer the nature of the subsurface lithologies. Titanium contents were derived from Clementine UV–Vis data (415, 750nm) following the approach of Lucey et al. [Lucey, P.G., Blewett, D.T. and Jolliff, B.L., Lunar iron and titanium abund...
Central peaks of 26 lunar craters have been observed for average FeO and TiO2 concentration using Clementine UVVIS data. The results have shown a distinct correlation with lithological assemblage obtained earlier by Tompkins and Pieters (1999).
The scientific objectives of the proposed Indian polar orbiter mission to the Moon for simultaneous geochemical, mineralogical and photogeological studies are described. The payloads include hyperspectral imager for mineralogical mapping, X-ray fluorescence spectrometer for elemental mapping, low energy gamma ray spectrometer for mapping some radio...
