Bennett Wilson

My research explores how liquid water altered the earliest asteroids in our solar system, and the role these bodies may have played in the origin of life. Using meteorites and mission returned samples from hydrated asteroids, I target alteration minerals with high-precision mass spectrometry and nanoscale spectroscopic techniques to understand how water-rock interactions produced new minerals and organic compounds. This work constrains the conditions under which biorelevant organics and minerals may have emerged on small planetary bodies.