The University of Texas at Austin has been awarded a $496,441 Project Grant by the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences grant program (CFDA 47.049). The grant will fund a collaborative research project entitled "GLOW: Basal Magma Ocean Dynamos of Early Earth, Venus, and the Moon" that aims to understand the origin and dynamics of the ancient magnetic fields of Earth, Venus, and the Moon.
The project will investigate whether a dynamo generated by a magma ocean could have sustained Earth's early magnetic field, as well as determine how long a dynamo may have existed on Venus and if it was responsible for the Moon's early high-intensity magnetic field. The research team will simulate dynamos with different transport properties to assess whether basal magma ocean dynamos can generate magnetic fields consistent with observational constraints. The project results will be made publicly available, and undergraduate students will gain hands-on experience running dynamo simulations and developing data analytics skills. This research is expected to advance the understanding of basal magma ocean dynamos in terrestrial planets and exoplanets.
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