Signal Processing of Seismic and Image Data for Planetary Exploration

Abstract

The field of Earth and planetary sciences seeks to clarify the physical processes and properties of Solar System bodies and their surrounding space environments. Robotic space missions launched from Earth have been pivotal for advancing this knowledge. On Earth, planetary analog studies can also address the feasibility of Solar System investigations with significantly less complexity and cost. Here, I explore data acquired from spacecraft and planetary analog studies that examine wave phenomena from seismic and light sources. Specifically, I use these data to establish the properties of hydrated planetary bodies. The first part of this dissertation demonstrates how seismic events from Earth’s cryosphere provide an analog for the signals anticipated from a future mission to an icy moon (Appendices A-B). In particular, I examine data from terrestrial analogs of Jupiter’s satellite Europa, which bears a frozen crust, subsurface ocean, and represents a potentially habitable environment in the outer Solar System. I process high-frequency and broadband seismograms from the Greenland ice sheet to explore techniques that will maximize the scientific yield of a Europa Lander seismometer, an instrument concept currently under study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In the last section (Appendix C), I investigate color images of asteroid Bennu acquired by NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx). Bennu is a hydrated and carbon-bearing primitive asteroid and may be similar to the objects that delivered water to the early Earth. In each of these studies, I apply a standard toolbox of digital signal processing methods, which have broad utility when analyzing data returned by different instruments designed to sense distinct geophysical processes.