Rob Spaargaren

PS Planetary and Solar System Sciences

The 2022 Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Award is awarded to Rob Spaargaren for the poster/PICO entitled:

Rocky exoplanet compositions and its effects on long-term planetary evolution (Spaargaren, R.; Ballmer, M.; Mojzsis, S.; Wang, H.; Tackley, P.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

Rob Spaargaren is a PhD candidate in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics group at ETH Zurich. His research focuses on using stellar abundance measurements to constrain the range of potential rocky exoplanet compositions, and investigate how rocky planet composition within those ranges can affect mantle dynamics and interior evolution of those planets.

For the EGU general assembly 2022, Rob presented his work on applying the Earth-Sun devolatilization trend to stellar abundances to simulate terrestrial exoplanet compositions. These compositions show that the Earth composition is fairly close to the population median. Further, exotic compositions are rare, meaning that the vast majority of exoplanets have the same mineral species as Earth. However, the relative abundances of these minerals vary significantly. For example, some planets are found to contain the weak phase magnesiowüstite in the upper mantle, and some planets are found to have strong interiors, with lower mantles dominated by bridgmanite. Therefore, composition is expected to have far-reaching impact on the geodynamical evolution of rocky planets.