The objective of the General Session is to accommodate abstracts within the program group that do not align with the themes of any of the existing sessions in the same program group. Please note that all submitted abstracts may be reassigned to a different session at the discretion of the respective session chairs.

Space environments, including magnetospheres, ionospheres, atmospheres, and associated auroral regions, are fundamental components of planetary and cometary systems. They are shaped by solar radiation and influenced by a wide range of processes such as space‑weather variability, solar wind dynamics, and changes in the neutral atmosphere. Within these systems, ionospheres play a central role in governing overall dynamics: they form the critical interface linking the neutral atmosphere, exosphere, and surrounding plasma environments (e.g., the solar wind at Mars, Venus, Pluto, and comets, or the Kronian magnetosphere at Titan). Understanding how each unmagnetized body responds to these external and internal drivers is essential for comparative aeronomy. While these bodies may share broadly similar behaviours, their distinct physical characteristics lead to scientifically significant differences, including in their auroral emissions and ionospheric responses.
This session focuses on the space environments, including auroral phenomena of Mars, Venus, Pluto, Titan, Jovian moons, comets, and related comparative studies, including analogies with the ionospheres of magnetized bodies. We invite abstracts addressing remote‑sensing and in‑situ observations, modelling efforts, instrumentation, and mission concepts.
Topics may include, but are not limited to: day‑ and night‑side ionospheric variability; sources and drivers of ionization; ion‑neutral interactions; current systems; comparative ionospheric and auroral studies across bodies; and solar‑wind–ionosphere coupling, including the response of neutral and ionized regimes to transient space‑weather events. Abstracts addressing general plasma processes and atmospheric escape are also welcome.

The aim of this session is to share the knowledge and experience gained by all Mars science and exploration programmes, both in Europe and worldwide, to promote synergies among the various missions in operations and development. We welcome contributions from any field of Mars science (observation or modelling) and exploration (robotic and human), in particular mission status and instrument overviews of latest scientific results and technical developments. These may include latest scientific results and mission overviews, as well as new challenges, for orbiters (Mars Express, ExoMars TGO, Odyssey, MRO, Tianwen-1, Hope), surface assets (Mars Science Laboratory, Mars2020), and future missions: Escapade, Martian Moons eXploration (MMX), ExoMars Rosalind Franklin Mission, and beyond.

This session welcomes all presentations on Mars' interior and surface processes. With many active missions, Mars research is as vibrant as ever, and new data come in on a daily basis. The aim of this session is to bring together disciplines as various as geology, geomorphology, geophysics, mineralogy, and geochemistry. We welcome presentations on both past and present processes, either pure Mars science or comparative planetology (including fieldwork on terrestrial analogues), either observations or modeling or laboratory experiments (or any combination of those). New results on Mars science obtained from recent in situ and orbital measurements are particularly encouraged, as well as studies related to upcoming missions and campaigns (e.g., ExoMars).

This session is now established for 10 years, and typically attracts a good amount of contributions reflecting the diversity of missions and science questions related to the solid portions of, covering the broad scope of current research.

Collisional processes are integral mechanisms that both shape the final configuration of the Solar System, and modify planetary surfaces and small bodies from its birth until today.
This session aims at understanding planetary impact processes at all scales, in terms of impact cratering and ejecta dynamics, crater distribution and crater chronology, material mixing, shock metamorphism and other geochemical consequences, ejecta-atmosphere interactions, impact induced climatic and environmental effects, and biotic responses.
We welcome oral and poster presentations across this broad range of studies about natural or artificial impact collision phenomena on planetary surfaces and small bodies. In particular, abstracts on impact modelling, impact laboratory experiments, geologic and structural mapping, petrographic and geochemical analysis of impact products, as well as remote sensing observations from space missions to planets and small bodies. We also welcome the examination of competing hypotheses for the giant impact formation of terrestrial and outer solar system bodies. Finally, we also support abstracts investigating the DART impact, whose outcome will be observed by HERA few months after this conference.

Understanding surface–exosphere coupling is essential for interpreting observations of airless planets and planning future missions. This session focuses on the physical processes linking surface‑bounded exospheres to their parent surfaces, from atomistic interactions to global dynamics. We welcome contributions from data analysis, laboratory experiments, theoretical work, and numerical modelling that advance our understanding of these systems.

Topics include surface–volatile and plasma interactions, micrometeoroid bombardment, irradiation, space weathering, and volatile implantation. We particularly encourage studies that connect multiple processes or spatial and temporal scales, highlighting the two‑way coupling where surface properties influence exospheric behaviour and exospheric processes contribute to surface evolution.

Comparative studies across planetary bodies, including the Moon, Mercury, asteroids, and icy moons, are also welcome to help refine the physical framework governing surface–exosphere interactions. Contributions linking surface–exosphere processes to exoplanets with tenuous or escaping atmospheres are welcome. This session aims to build a coherent, multi‑scale perspective on the mechanisms shaping these environments and their evolution.

We particularly encourage early‑career scientists to submit abstracts for oral presentations.

Planetary regoliths play a key role in shaping the evolution, mechanical response, and exploration of celestial bodies across the Solar System. Understanding the behaviour of regolith materials in varying gravitational, thermal, and atmospheric conditions is essential for interpreting surface processes, understanding planetary origin and evolution, and for supporting future robotic and human exploration.
This session focuses on the mechanical, geotechnical, dynamical (flow) and thermophysical properties of regolith on planetary bodies such as the Moon, Mars, asteroids, comets, and natural satellites. We welcome contributions based on laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, and theoretical analyses, in addition to studies using in-situ, remote sensing, or returned sample data and simulants.
The session aims to provide a forum for advancing our understanding of regolith physics across planetary environments and for enhancing connections between disciplines: planetary science, granular physics, and geotechnical engineering. Interdisciplinary approaches that bridge experiments, modelling, and observations are encouraged and we particularly encourage early career scientists to submit an abstract for an oral presentation.

Space missions have delivered a wealth of observations of the atmospheres and aeronomy of rocky planets and moons, from the lower atmosphere to regions interacting directly with the solar wind. With recent advances and forthcoming missions, planetary atmospheric science is entering a particularly active phase. This session invites contributions on the physical and chemical processes shaping the lower, middle, and upper atmospheres of terrestrial bodies in the Solar System, including atmospheric chemistry, energetics, dynamics, electrodynamics, atmospheric escape, surface–atmosphere interactions, and coupling with the space environment.
We welcome studies based on spacecrafts (e.g., Messenger, BepiColombo, Venus Express, Akatsuki, EnVision, Davinci, Mars Express, MRO, TGO, EMM, MAVEN, MMX, among others), ground-based observations, comparative planetology, numerical modelling, and laboratory experiments.
In view of upcoming ESA and NASA Venus missions, contributions addressing current understanding, open questions, and preparatory studies of the Venus atmosphere are particularly encouraged. The session will include solicited and contributed oral presentations, as well as posters.

Volcanism, tectonics, and seismicity represent key expressions of internal activity across the Solar System, fundamentally shaping the surfaces and interiors of terrestrial planets, moons, and icy satellites. Recent advances — including high-resolution orbital datasets, returned lunar samples, and seismic measurements from the Moon and Mars — have provided major insights into planetary interior structure, lithospheric processes, and the links between magmatism, tectonics, and seismic behavior. Together, these observations are transforming our understanding of how planetary bodies evolve and how endogenic processes manifest under different physical and environmental conditions.

Following the success of missions such as InSight, upcoming and recent missions — including Dragonfly, VERITAS, EnVision, Chang’e 6, and the Farside Seismic Suite — promise substantial progress in characterizing volcanic, tectonic, and seismic processes on Titan, Venus, and the Moon. These missions will refine constraints on planetary interiors, crustal structure, and the mechanisms driving seismicity. In parallel, small-body seismology is rapidly emerging as a new frontier, with future exploration concepts increasingly incorporating seismic investigations of asteroids and comets.

This session invites contributions addressing planetary volcanism, tectonics, and seismicity through observational, analytical, experimental, and theoretical approaches. We welcome studies of volcanic and tectonic landforms, magma–tectonic interactions, faulting and lithospheric deformation, seismicity and interior structure, as well as numerical and laboratory modeling. Submissions on geochemical and geophysical constraints, comparative planetology, mission concepts, instrumentation, and data analysis related to planetary interiors and seismic processes on planets and small bodies are particularly encouraged.

Planetary cryospheres encompass environments enriched of volatile ices, in the form of frost deposits, polar caps, glaciers, and permafrost. Cryospheres are found across the entire Solar System at very different heliocentric distances: on Earth, ice plays a crucial role in landscape evolution, is a key hydrological resource, and acts as a valuable paleoclimatic indicator.
The Martian polar caps exhibit analogous features to those on Earth, including surface modification and associated landforms, but they also contain CO₂ ice. At mid-latitudes, periglacial landforms, such as polygonal terrains indicate the presence of subsurface ice, while glacier-like features contain relict ice and provide evidence of past glacial activity. Moreover, airless bodies such as Mercury and the Moon host icy deposits within the permanently shadowed regions of their polar craters. Similarly, dwarf planet Ceres presents surface and near-subsurface water ice, along with geomorphological and compositional evidence for volatile-driven activity. Further away, beyond the Solar System’s frost line, water ice becomes the dominant compositional endmember. All satellites of Jupiter and Saturn have icy crusts. For some of them (Europa and Enceladus) we have clues which imply the presence of internal oceans. In addition to water ice, CO₂ and CH₄ also condense into cryospheres at extremely low temperatures.
Therefore, studying ice on various planetary bodies is crucial for understanding their composition, geological history, climate evolution, and the processes which distributed water and other ices around the solar system.
This session welcomes a broad range of contributions, including remote sensing (e.g., geomorphic, geophysical and compositional analyses), numerical modelling, and laboratory experiments, as well as research incorporating terrestrial analogues.

Venus, often referred to as Earth's sibling due to its similar size, mass, and heliocentric distance, remains one of the most intriguing and enigmatic planets in our Solar System. Despite these similarities, Venus has followed an evolutionary path that is drastically different, leading to a hostile surface environment, presenting a profound enigma for planetary scientists.

Following decades of limited exploration, Venus is once again in the spotlight of planetary exploration, with an exciting wave of missions set to transform our understanding of this enigmatic world. ESA's EnVision aims to explore Venus, uncovering clues about its geological history and activity, interior structure, atmospheric composition, and long-term climate evolution. Beyond EnVision, other planned space missions (DAVINCI+, VERITAS, Shukrayaan-1, CLOVE), as well as a diverse array of scientific activities, including ground-based observations, laboratory experiments, analogue studies, algorithm development and theoretical modeling are contributing to a comprehensive understanding of Venus, with a growing need for increasingly consistent coupling between processes and physical layers, from the core to the upper atmosphere.

We welcome contributions from all areas of Venus research, including interior processes, surface geology and geomorphology, atmospheric dynamics, laboratory simulations, and past mission data analysis. By bringing together diverse expertise, this session aims to enhance our understanding of Venus' history and current state, while exploring its broader implications for planetary evolution throughout the Solar System and beyond.

Sediment transport processes are fundamental for shaping the surfaces of rocky and icy bodies in the Solar System. These processes are varied; from mass-wasting on hillslopes, to the transport of sediment in water- and non-water-based systems, to aeolian processes across a wide range of surfaces and atmospheres. Much of the fundamentals of these processes remain poorly understood in the varying surface environments of the planetary bodies in our Solar System: from the mobility of landslides and debris flows on Mars, to the dynamics of deltas and fluvial systems on Mars and Titan, to aeolian bedform morphology and dynamics on Mars, Titan, Pluto, as well as asteroids and cometary bodies.

The aim of this session is to bring together researchers from different disciplines such as geomorphology and sedimentology to stimulate knowledge exchange based on the broad topic of sediment transport processes under varying planetary conditions, rather than one planetary environment.

We encourage contributions based on, but not limited to, mass-wasting processes (landslides and debris flows), sediment transport environments (rivers and deltas) on Earth, Mars, and Titan, and aeolian bedforms under different surface atmospheric interaction conditions (from rocky and icy planetary bodies to small solar system bodies). We welcome a broad range of approaches: remote sensing (geomorphological, geophysical and compositional analysis), laboratory experiments, numerical modelling, as well as analogue studies.

The MSL/Curiosity rover has been exploring Gale crater for 14 years, and has explored a variety of geologic units and past environments. These local observations unveil processes, more or less understood, that may have global implications at Mars. For example, the discovery of an unexpected siderite deposit in association with sulfates tells part of the CO2 cycle story.
The Mars2020/Perseverance rover also brought some light into the CO2 cycle via the observation of ultramafic material that underwent carbonation and/or serpentinization. Now Perseverance is exploring the Jezero crater rim and encountering the oldest terrains ever explored in situ by rovers, dating from before the Jezero crater formation or even before the Isidis basin formation. Some megablocks have revealed an extraordinary diversity of magmatic and alteration processes, from non-altered pyroxene-rich rocks to fully serpentinized rocks.
Mars Express and MRO, from orbit, also have key observations about the nature of early crust and associated alteration processes.
This session aims at understanding the characteristics of Mars’ primary crust, its evolution, and alteration products. In situ, orbital, and experimental/modeling observations are welcome.

This session is aimed at research into surface and near-surface geological and geomorphological features and processes, on Venus, or of relevance to Venus through the use of Earth analogues sites and datasets.
In preparing for the forthcoming missions, it is essential that we try to achieve an enhanced understanding of what we might expect to see differently, with respect to the existing Magellan data. What changes might we expect to see? At what scales and how much change? How can we be sure that we are seeing real change, not false changes caused by system differences between old and new data. All these potential complexities must be prepared for.
Such preparations include careful selection of target locations and extents on Venus, to capture a representative sample of Venus’ diverse terrains and landforms, including volcanic features, tectonic structures, impact craters, and aeolian deposits. In the absence of new data, before Envision, VERITAS and DAVINCI deliver datasets of unprecedented detail, it is important that teams prepare through the development of customised tools and models, and through the use of Earth Observation data at carefully selected analogue sites to enhance understanding and thus to inform those models and tools.

Moon exploration has once again become a major objective within the scientific community. Several space agencies are preparing for in situ robotic and human exploration missions (Rashid 3, LUPEX, MAGPIE, Chang’e 7, Chang’e 8, NASA’s CLPS program missions, ESA's PROSPECT package, and Artemis missions).
This session aims to bring together scientific studies of the lunar surface and subsurface that can help pave the way for upcoming space missions. We welcome studies that support the planning of future missions, including—but not necessarily limited to—remote sensing, geological mapping, in situ measurements, laboratory and analog experiments, sample analyses, and modeling. Topics include:
• Resource potential, including the detection and distribution of OH/H₂O, water ice and other volatiles or mineral resources relevant for future utilization
• Use of spectral, thermal, radar, and geophysical data for lunar surface and subsurface characterization
• Mineralogical and geological characterization of key terrains
• Regolith physical and mechanical properties (e.g., grain size, porosity, density, thermal inertia, mechanical strength)

The lunar space environment is governed by dynamic coupling between the solar wind/magnetospheric plasma, energetic particles, exosphere, dust grains, photoelectrons, the solid surface, and magnetic anomalies. In recent years, many space agencies, as well as private companies and academic institutions, have been actively preparing for a new era of lunar exploration. The number of missions planned to arrive at and operate on the lunar surface in the coming decade is rapidly increasing. While these missions will advance our understanding of the Moon environment, they will also inevitably perturb and modify the pristine lunar environment. Characterizing the pristine state before it is significantly altered by human activity is therefore urgent, and timely action is required.

This session invites oral and poster contributions across this broad area of the lunar environment, addressing both its natural state and its evolution under increasing human activity. Contributions are encouraged from a wide range of approaches, including data analysis, numerical simulations, laboratory experiments, instrumentation, future missions, and combinations thereof. Key themes include innovative science across disciplines, identification of critical observations and methodologies needed for pre-contamination characterization, and interdisciplinary studies that reveal the coupling between different domains of the lunar space environment.

This session aims to gain insight into the complex coupling that shapes the lunar space environment, examine the implications of upcoming exploration for lunar science and human activities, engage scientists from diverse disciplines to share cutting-edge knowledge, and stimulate new ideas for understanding and preserving the lunar environment in the era of intensive exploration.

This is an Open Session on Lunar Science and Exploration. Key themes include innovative science on the deep interior, subsurface structure, surface morphology, up to exospheric dynamics and the solar wind interaction. Studies can make use of lunar missions data, lunar samples, meteorites, terrestrial analogues, laboratory experiments, theoretical work and modeling efforts.

We welcome all relevant contributions — theory, observations, instruments, experiments, analogues — from experts of different fields including science, engineering, industry, agencies, human exploration, resources, economy and policy.

The number of Lunar exploration missions in preparation and planned to arrive and operate at the lunar surface in the next decade is growing at a fast pace. Those missions will have to study, operate in, and survive the lunar environment. They will also perturb and modify the pristine environment significantly. The lunar space environment is a highly dynamic system governed by coupling processes between the solar wind/magnetospheric plasma, energetic particles, neutral and dust exosphere, lunar regolith and near surface dust, and magnetic anomalies. In recent years, almost all space agencies and many private companies and universities have been active in the preparation of new missions to the moon. Characterizing the pristine state as early as possible before it is contaminated by human activity (e.g. due to lunar landings or surface units outgassing) is of interest.

The session is supported by ILEWG LUNEX EuroMoonMars, the COSPAR PEX Panel on Exploration and COSPAR SCB commission (Space Studies of the Earth-Moon System, Planets, and Small Bodies)

The joint ESA/JAXA mission BepiColombo is entering a decisive and historic phase: its long‑awaited arrival at Mercury and orbit insertion in late 2026. Following six successful Mercury flybys, the mission has already delivered valuable new insights into the Hermean environment and demonstrated the strong complementarity between spacecraft observations, modelling, and ground‑based support.

In parallel, decades of investigations from Mariner 10 and MESSENGER observations to advances in laboratory experiments and numerical modelling have profoundly refined our understanding of Mercury’s origin, formation, interior structure, composition, exosphere and magnetosphere. The imminent start of BepiColombo’s orbital operations marks a unique opportunity to integrate these past achievements with the mission’s upcoming scientific phases.

This session aims to bring together the community as we prepare for BepiColombo’s arrival. We invite contributions in planetary, geological, exospheric, and magnetospheric science based on:

existing data from BepiColombo’s cruise phase and flybys,
heritage datasets from Mariner 10 and MESSENGER,
Earth-based observations,
laboratory and experimental studies,
theoretical and numerical modelling across all relevant domains.
With BepiColombo positioned to enter Mercury’s science phase in early 2027, this session is exceptionally timely. By synthesizing diverse perspectives and preparing the community for the mission’s next chapter, we seek to maximize the impact of BepiColombo’s forthcoming observations and advance our global understanding of Mercury during this transformative period.

Understanding why planetary atmospheres look the way they do today - and reconstructing the evolutionary pathways that brought them to their present states - is one of the most compelling questions in modern planetary science. This session adopts a comparative planetology perspective, bridging solar system bodies and exoplanet populations through
the lens of atmospheric evolution, investigated through observations, modelling, and mission-driven science.

We welcome contributions addressing the long-term evolution of atmospheres across all planetary types. In the inner solar system, Venus and Mars stand as striking cases of evolutionary divergence from Earth. Contributions on the Venus climate system and its long-term history are particularly encouraged, from photochemistry and cloud dynamics to the
transformative science expected from ESA's EnVision and its VenSpec suite.

In the outer solar system, Titan's organic-rich and seasonally evolving atmosphere offers a unique window into photochemical complexity and long-term change, with new observational and modelling efforts building on the Cassini legacy. The gas and ice giants - characterized with unprecedented detail by JWST, Juno, and the forthcoming JUICE mission - further enrich this comparative picture; ice giant atmospheres in particular represent a frontier for solar system science and an archetype for the most abundant planetary class in the galaxy, with the scientific case for a Uranus mission gaining momentum under NASA's Decadal Survey and ESA's Voyage 2050 framework.

Finally, broader comparative studies linking solar system atmospheric structure and chemistry to the growing population of exoplanets accessible to spectroscopic characterization are warmly welcomed. This includes contributions on atmospheric escape and its demographic imprints on exoplanet populations - from the radius valley and the Neptune desert to observations of young systems caught in the act of losing their envelopes. Both observational and modelling contributions are welcome, as well as cross-disciplinary studies connecting solar system and exoplanet atmospheric science through laboratory measurements, modeling and/or observations.

*This session is supported by the International Commission on Planetary Atmospheres and their Evolution (ICPAE), part of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS).

Comparative study of the terrestrial planets provides critical constraints on Earth's formation and evolution that cannot be obtained from Earth's rock record alone. This session welcomes contributions that use studies of terrestrial planetary bodies to enhance understanding of planet Earth. We encourage contributions that address divergent evolutionary pathways across the terrestrial planets, as well as constrain a broad range of processes, such as core formation and differentiation, the effects of impact bombardment, habitability, the onset and sustainability of plate tectonics, atmospheric evolution, volcanic forcing, and controls on major components of the modern Earth system.

Atmospheric aerosols and cloud particles are found in every atmosphere of the solar system, as well as, in exoplanets. Depending on their size, shape, chemical composition, latent heat, and distribution, their effect on the radiation budget varies drastically and is difficult to predict. When organic, aerosols also carry a strong prebiotic interest reinforced by the presence of heavy atoms such as nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur.

The aim of the session is to gather presentations on these complex objects for both terrestrial and giant planet atmospheres, including the special cases of Titan’s, Pluto's and Triton's hazy atmospheres. All research aspects from their production and evolution processes, their observation/detection, to their fate and atmospheric impact are welcomed, including observational & laboratory investigations and theoretical modelling.

Electromagnetic scattering phenomena play a key role in determining the properties of Solar System surfaces based on observations using different techniques and in a variety of wavelengths ranging from the ultraviolet to the radio. This session will promote a general advancement in the exploitation of observational and experimental techniques to characterize radiative transfer in complex particulate media. Abstracts are solicited on advances in numerical methods to extract relevant information from imagery, photometry, and spectroscopy in solid phase, reference laboratory databases, photometric modeling, interpreting features on planetary surfaces, mixing/unmixing methods, AI and machine learning, software and web service applications.

The two small Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, are crucial targets to improve our understanding of planetary system formation and evolution. Their origin remains highly debated, with hypotheses ranging from their gravitational capture as primitive asteroids to their formation through a giant impact.

In the context of the upcoming Japanese led MMX mission, to be launched in autumn 2026, this session invites scientific presentations providing new findings with respect to Phobos and Deimos, or comparative studies with respect to other small bodies of the solar system currently visited by other space missions.
Contributions from various scientific disciplines are invited, including remote sensing, laboratory experiments, numerical modeling, and mission science, to investigate the physical and compositional properties of the Martian moons. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, spectroscopic observations, surface morphology, regolith properties, internal structure, orbital dynamics, and space weathering processes. A goal is to further understand the needs and requirements for upcoming observations and to discover interdisciplinary aspects of interest. Special attention will also be given to recently acquired datasets from spacecraft observations, as well as to new mission concepts and instrument developments designed to explore these two bodies. The session seeks to advance our understanding of Phobos and Deimos, providing new insights into their origin.

Artificial Intelligence and its subfields such as Machine Learning and Deep Learning are transforming planetary science, offering innovative tools to explore, interpret, and model surface and subsurface features across the Solar System. Thanks to this, the scientific revenue from the application of such technologies is steadily increasing.

This session welcomes contributions reporting original scientific results from AI-driven applications and discoveries concerning rocky bodies of the Solar System such as inner terrestrial planets, satellites, and small bodies.

Possible submissions include but are not limited to the following topics:

- Automated detection and classification of surface features;
- Automated mapping of planetary surfaces;
- Spectral analysis;
- Geophysical properties;
- Tectonics and structural geology;
- Active surface processes;
- Onboard AI/ML for rover/lander operations.

We encourage abstract submissions from early-career scientists.

Novel techniques in artificial intelligence have the potential to revolutionise the field of planetary and space science. Recent advances in computing technology have demonstrated the utility of Machine Learning (ML) for analysing the large-scale datasets which are ubiquitous in planetary and space science. These tools have the potential to enable larger scale and more in-depth analyses than have ever been possible before.

Historically ML techniques have had a high barrier to entry for planetary scientists. However, as the use of ML has become more widespread, the techniques have become more accessible, thereby democratising this powerful tool.

This session will bring together researchers who have applied any form of AI, ML or other computational tools to unravel the mysteries of the solar system and beyond. We particularly encourage the discussion of open access and transferable models, as well as presentations which will help promote these techniques to others who are considering using them.