Kristen Bennett, NAU’s newest planetary scientist, has been selected to lend her expertise on NASA’s first crewed Moon mission since the 1970s.
NASA shared on March 24 that Bennett was one of just 10 scientists from throughout the United States who were chosen to advise astronauts on the mission Artemis IV, scheduled to launch no later than 2028. After flying in low Earth orbit, the spacecraft will navigate to and land on the Moon. From their lunar landing spots, the 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 Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center giving the astronauts feedback during their EVAs,” Bennett said. “We’ll help them figure out which direction to walk, which rocks to take as samples and how many samples to take.”
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 measuring surface temperatures on the Moon. Bennett is perhaps best known for operating the camera aboard the 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 keenly interested in lunar volcanic deposits. Studying that material, she said, reveals crucial information about what materials make up the inside of the Moon. As part of another planned space mission, she’ll explore a rare lunar silicic volcano.
“Most of the volcanoes on the Moon are basaltic, like Mauna Loa and Sunset Crater,” Bennett said. “But some domes are silicic, like Mount Saint Helens or Mount Elden. On Earth, silicic volcanoes erupt because of plate tectonics. The Moon doesn’t have tectonic plates, so why does it have silicic volcanoes? That’s what we’re hoping to find out.”
Why is Bennett especially over the (ahem) moon about participating in Artemis IV? It’s the first crewed lunar mission in 54 years, and it’s the first time astronauts will collect lunar rocks and dust from the south pole, a permanently shadowed region that traps volatiles like ice. With those samples at their disposal, 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 Artemis team include Aleksandra Gawronska from The Catholic University of America, Timothy Glotch from the State University of New York in Stony Brook, Paul Hayne from the University of Colorado Boulder, Erica Jawin from the Smithsonian Institution, Jeannette Luna from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Sabrina Martinez from the NASA Johnson Space Center and Jamie Molaro, Hanna Sizemore and Catherine Weltz from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson.
Jill Kimball | NAU Communications
(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu