Hot Environments Lab - Home

The Hot Environments Lab is part of the Astrochemistry Laboratory in the Solar System Exploration Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. This laboratory houses many systems used to explore materials at extreme conditions relevant to exoplanet atmospheres and Venus. These instruments are capable of reaching high temperatures, both low and high pressures and various chemical environments.

Background

This Laboratory aims to provide the equipment and tools needed to gain in-situ data of materials in environments that are difficult to simulate. Data like this is imperative to current and upcoming missions such as the DAVINCI (Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble Gases, Chemistry, and Imaging) mission to Venus and JWST (James Web Space Telescope) which will observe exoplanets. Improvements in observational methods and theoretical modeling, in conjunction with laboratory measurements taken in simulated environments like those observed, allow us to understand of the chemical and physical processes that shape the planets. Laboratory experiments simulating the extreme conditions found on other planets serve to interpret mission and ground-based telescope observations. The equipment and instrumentation in the Hot Environments Lab are designed to simulate a variety of hot environments and provide in situ and analytical data to various planetary measurements, all above Earth’s ambient temperature. We also have the benefit of housing several different kinds of instruments that can gather a vast amount of data all in the same lab, preventing the need for transporting samples across many locations. More details of these instruments can be found in the Equipment tab.

We are grateful for financial support from the following:

• NASA Planetary Science Division
• Internal Scientist Funding Model (ISFM): Sellers Exoplanet Environments Collaboration (SEEC)
• Internal Scientist Funding Model (ISFM): Fundamental Laboratory Research (FLaRe)