SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - NAU Expert Joins NASA's Artemis II Team

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Send us a text and chime in!Kristen Bennett, NAU’s newest planetary scientist, has been selected to lend her expertise on NASA’s first crewed lunar landing since the 1970s. NASA shared on March 24 that Bennett was one of just 10 participating scientists from throughout the United States selected to join a lunar surface science team that will help develop plans for the first Artemis crewed missions on the Moon. From their lunar landing spots, the Artemis astronauts will venture out on extravehicular activities, or EVAs. That’s where Bennett comes in. “Our job is to be the scientists—and specifically geologists—sitting in the back room at the NASA... For the written story, read here >> https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/nau-expert-joins-nasas-artemis-ii-team/Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Text-to-speech audio articles made possible on the Cast11.com podcast network by Fane Signature Group. Kristen Bennett, now's newest planetary scientist, has been selected to lend her expertise on NASA's first crude lunar landing since the 1970s. NASA shared on March 24th that Bennett was one of just 10 participating scientists from throughout the United States selected to join a lunar surface science team that will help develop plans for the first Artemis crewed missions on the moon. From their lunar landing spots, the Artemis astronauts will venture out on extravehicular activities, or EVAs. That's where Bennett comes in. Our job is to be the scientists, and specifically geologists, sitting in the back room at the NASA Johnson

Space Center giving the astronauts feedback during their EVAs, Bennett said. Our science plans will help guide which direction to walk, which rocks to take as samples and how many samples to collect at a specific location. An associate research professor who joined Nau's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science and the new Radiant Center for Remote Sensing in December 2025, Bennett is a seasoned expert in planetary geology. Over seven years at the U.S. Geological Survey, she played crucial roles in a wide array of space missions, including the long-running diviner lunar radiometer experiment on NASA's lunar reconnaissance orbiter measuring surface temperatures on the moon.

Bennett is perhaps best known for operating the camera aboard NASA's Mars Curiosity rover. If you've seen the selfies from the Mars rover and trust us, you have, that's me, Bennett said. Bennett is most keenly interested in lunar volcanic deposits. Studying that material, she said, reveals crucial things about what materials make up the inside of the moon. As part of another planned space mission, she'll soon explore a rare lunar Solicicic volcano. Most of the volcanoes on the moon are basaltic, like Monoia and Sunset Crater on Earth,

Bennett said. But some domes are Solicic, like Mount St. Helens or Mount Eldon. On Earth, Solicic volcanoes erupt because of plate tectonics. The moon doesn't have tectonic plates, so why does it have solistic volcanoes? That's what we're hoping to find out. Why is Bennett especially over the, ahem, moon about participating in the Artemis missions? She'll be part of the first crude lunar landing in more than 50 years. For the first time in history, astronauts will collect lunar rocks and dust from the South Pole

region, where permanently shadowed areas trap volatiles like ice. With those samples in hand, Bennett and her peers could tackle towering unanswered questions about how the moon was born. Samples enable us to investigate the moon's formation, geological history and internal structure in ways that aren't possible through remote sensing, Bennett said. This is big. Other scientists on the Lunar Surface Science team include Alexandra Gernska from the Catholic University of America, Timothy Glottch from the State University of New York and Stony Brook, Paul Hain from the University of Colorado Boulder, Erica John from the Smithsonian Institution, Jeanette Luna from Tennessee

Technological University in Cookville, Sabrina Martinez from the NASA Johnson Space Center and Jamie Malero, Hannah Seismore and Catherine Welts from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson. Read more stories from education on signalsaz.com. Subscribe and be the F-1 RST 2-0.