LPL's Mission
The Department of Planetary Sciences/Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is an academic institution that pursues scholarly research and education across the broad discipline of planetary and solar systems science through use of theoretical studies and data analysis, laboratory and field investigations, numerical modeling, telescopic observations, remote sensing, spacecraft instrumentation, and space mission development and operations.
Message from the Director
Welcome to the University of Arizona’s Department of Planetary Sciences (PtyS) and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL). The University of Arizona is one of the nation’s best research universities, annually ranking among the top in the nation in external financial support for research in the physical sciences.
Focus on Research
Understanding how planets form and evolve and how life emerged on Earth are among the most fundamental questions in planetary science and astronomy. We are living in an exciting era where, in addition to the planets in our Solar System, we can study and characterize over a thousand exoplanets orbiting other stars.
Exoplanet studies at the LPL cover a broad range of topics including the characterization and dispersal of protoplanetary disks around young stars, dynamics and stability of planetary systems, direct imaging and transit observations of exoplanets, study of exoplanet atmospheres including observable effects of their magnetic fields, dynamics of planetary atmospheres, and exoplanet climate models.
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