Dr. Jamie Molaro

Dr. Molaro has extensive experience in thermal and mechanical numerical modeling, an early background in terrestrial fieldwork and instrumentation, and is an expert on the properties of rocks and regolith on airless body surfaces. Her work focuses on physical weathering processes and thermal metamorphism, and their role in landscape evolution across the solar system. She utilizes 1D, 2D, and 3D modeling to study thermally induced fracturing and rock breakdown on lunar and asteroid surfaces, and is now extending this work to study the mechanical properties and behavior of ice and ice-rock mixtures, with implications for fracture processes on asteroid, dwarf planet, and cometary surfaces. She also performs numerical and laboratory investigations to study ice sintering and densification on comets and icy satellites, with a focus on characterizing the microstructural evolution of their properties for future exploration efforts. Other projects include thermal moonquakes, asteroid resurfacing processes, regolith creep and mobilization, thermal shock processes on Mercury-crossing asteroids, and the multi-scale nature of airless body surface evolution.

Dr. Molaro is a Participating Scientist on NASA's Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission to retrieve a sample from asteroid Bennu, and a Co-I on the Project for Exploration Science Pathfinder Research for Enhancing Solar System Observations (ESPRESSO), a node of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). She is also heavily invested in Education and Public Outreach efforts, including founding and running the Art of Planetary Science (www.lpl.arizona.edu/art) shows since 2013.

• Physical weathering, surfaces, geomorphology
• Thermal and mechanical modeling
• Airless bodies, small bodies, icy satellites

Find me Online:

• Professional website: www.jmolaro.com
• Personal/Art Website: www.dataarcana.com
• Twitter Handle: @spacejammie

Select Publications:

Molaro, J. L., et al., 2020. Thermal fatigue as a mechanism for asteroid activity, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, p.e2019JE006325.

Molaro, J. L., et al., 2020. In situ evidence of thermally induced rock breakdown widespread on Bennu’s surface, Nature Communications, 11(1), 1-11.

Molaro, J. L., M. Choukroun, C. B. Phillips, E. S. Phelps, R. Hodyss,, K. L. Mitchell, J. L. Lora, G. Merion-Griffith, 2018. The microstructural evolution of water ice in the solar system through sintering, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 10.1029/2018JE005773.

Molaro, JL, S Byrne, and J-L Le, 2017. Thermally induced stresses in lunar boulders, implications for breakdown. Icarus, 294, pp.247-261.

Molaro, JL, S Byrne, and S Langer, 2015. Grain-scale thermoelastic stresses and spatiotemporaltemperature gradients on airless bodies, implications for rock breakdown. JGR Planets 120,DOI: 10.1002/2014JE004729.