Current Projects:
Detection of an ocean on Europa from an orbiting spacecraft
(Discovery proposal and its aftermath, with Los Alamos National Lab and others)
Water and organic molecules on ancient and contemporary Mars
(NASA exobiology grant)
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and meteorite impacts
(With members of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology)
Early Earth environment at the time of the origin of life
Classes taught:
The Origin of Life in the Solar System (Fall 1997)
Ptys 107: Planet Earth: Evolution of a Habitable World (Spring 1997)
Global Threats: A Critical Survey (Princeton Geosciences, Spring 1996)
Impacts in Earth History (Princeton Geosciences, Fall 1995)
Selected Memberships/Committee Positions:
Chair of the Editorial Board, The Planetary Report
Member, Board of Advisors, Teach for America Math and Science Initiative
Member, NASA Campaign Science Working Group for Europa and Titan
Selected recent references:
Monitoring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Possible ambiguities due to meteorite
impacts. C.F. Chyba, G. E. van der Vink, and C.B. Hennet. Nature, submitted.
The early faint Sun "paradox": Organic shielding of ultraviolet-labile greenhouse
gases. C. Sagan and C.F. Chyba. Science, submitted.
Feasibility of radar detection of a Europan ocean from an orbiting spacecraft.
C.F. Chyba, S.J. Ostro, and B.C. Edwards. Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
28th (1997), in press.
Comets as a source of prebiotic organic molecules for the early Earth.
C.F. Chyba and C. Sagan (1997). In Comets and the Origin and Evolution of Life
(P.J. Thomas, C.F. Chyba, and C.P. McKay, eds.), pp. 147-173
(New York: Springer-Verlag).
Catastrophic impacts and the Drake equation. C.F. Chyba (1997). In Astronomical
and Biochemical Origins and the Search for Life in the Universe (C.B. Cosmovici,
S. Bowyer, and D. Werthimer, eds.), pp. 157-164 (Editrice Compositori, Bologna).
IRIS assists Senate in investigation of international terrorist group. C.B. Hennet, G.
van der Vink, D. Harvey, C. Chyba (1996). IRIS Newsletter 15(3), 13-15.
The origin of life in the Solar System: Current issues. C.F. Chyba and G.W. McDonald
(1995). Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 24: 215-249.
Selected older references:
The 1908 Tunguska explosion: Atmospheric disruption of a stony asteroid.
C.F. Chyba, P.J. Thomas, and K.J. Zahnle (1993). Nature 361: 40-44.
Cometary delivery of organic molecules to the early Earth. C.F. Chyba,
P.J. Thomas, L. Brookshaw, and C. Sagan (1990). Science 249: 366-373.
Triton's streaks as windblown dust. C. Sagan and C. Chyba (1990).
Nature 346: 546-548.
Impact delivery and erosion of planetary oceans in the early solar system.
C.F. Chyba (1990). Nature 343: 129-133.
Voyager 2 at Neptune: Imaging science results. B.A. Smith et al. (1989).
Science 246: 1422-1449.
Orbital evolution in the Neptune-Triton system. C.F. Chyba, D.G. Jankowski,
and P.D. NIcholson (1989). Astronomy and Astrophysics 219: L23-L26.
The heliocentric evolution of infrared cometary spectra: Results from an organic
grain model. C.F. Chyba, C. Sagan, and M.J. Mumma (1989). Icarus 79: 362-381.
Biographical Sketch:
Planetary Scientist Christopher Chyba is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. Prior to
joining the Arizona faculty, Dr. Chyba spent a year as a visiting lecturer
in the Department of Geosciences and the Center for Energy and Environmental
Studies at Princeton University. In 1994-1995, he had been Energy Liaison
in the National Security and International Affairs Division of the White House
Office of Science and Technology Policy, where his work included topics ranging
from nuclear proliferation to emerging infectious diseases. As a contractor
for the White House in 1995-1996, Dr. Chyba authored the draft presidential
directive on the United States' strategy for responding to the threat of
emerging infectious diseases. Dr. Chyba entered the Clinton Administration
in 1993 as a White House Fellow; during 1993-1994 he was Director for
International Environmental Affairs on the staff of the National Security
Council. He was a National Research Council Fellow at NASA's Ames Research
and Goddard Space Flight Centers from October 1991 until coming to the NSC.
His scientific research has ranged from six weeks spent drilling with a
joint U.S.-Soviet expedition in Northeastern Siberia to work with the Voyager
imaging team at the Jet Propulsion Laboaratory during that spacecraft's
encounters with the Uranus and Neptune systems. His Ph.D. thesis, which he
earned at Cornell University with Dr. Carl Sagan, largely concerned cometary
organic molecules and the role comet impacts may have played in the origins
of life on Earth. Prior to coming to Cornell, he had been a Marshall Scholar
at Cambridge University, England, and a graduate of Swarthmore College. Some of
Dr. Chyba's more recent scientific work has helped explain the century-old
mystery of the devastating 15 megaton atmospheric explosion in 1908 over
Tunguska, Central Siberia, that felled 800 square miles of forest. The Tunguska
event is now understood as a typical outcome for a typical asteroid about
60 meters across entering the Earth's atmosphere. Much of Dr. Chyba's
current research lies in exobiology, including studies of early Earth and
Mars, and the detection of a possible ocean on Jupiter's moon Europa. In
December 1994, Dr. Chyba was one of fifty Americans featured in Time
magazine's cover story, "50 for the future: Time's roster of America's most
promising leaders age 40 and under." In December 1996, Dr. Chyba received
the Presidential Early Career Award, "for demonstrating exceptional potential
for leadership at the frontiers of science and technology during the 21st
century."
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