Department News

Nick McFarlin, Undergraduate Astrobiology Minor

Senior Nick McFarlin is majoring in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a minor in Astrobiology. He is interested in unanswered questions like "How did life originate on Earth?" and "Is there life elsewhere?" After graduation, Nick plans to become a researcher with the possibility of attending graduate school in a biology related field and perhaps someday working at NASA.

Nick's favorite astrobiology class was GEOS 484, Coevolution of the Earth and Biosphere. It was unique for being a small, interdisciplinary class that had students read research papers that dealt with nearly every type of science; in that way, it felt to Nick more like a graduate course. And, says Nick, "There were also three field trips that were really cool." Nick is currently involved with a vertically integrated project mostly associated with the Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences. The project is working to determine whether a model developed in the 1980s for the timing of flowering of Sonoran desert plants is still a valid one; depending on results, project researchers will question whether changes can attributed to climate change.

In his spare time, Nick sings and plays the drums and eventually would like to produce his own music. He also enjoys trivia and MarioKart!

Final flight for SOFIA

On December 13, NASA’s flying observatory, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), flew over the Kuiper Space Sciences building and the UArizona mall, concluding its final flight to Davis Monthan Air Force Base before becoming an exhibit at the Pima Air and Space Museum.

SOFIA replaced the venerable Kuiper Airborne Observatory. Many LPL researchers collected infrared observations of Solar System objects on these flying observatories over the years.

Fall 2022 PTYS 590 Field Trip

Scenic overlook from Windy Point Vista, between Tucson and Mt. Lemmon.

 

By Christopher Hamilton

This semester, the PTYS 590 Planetary Geology Field Studies course intended to explore sedimentary units in Northern Arizona, but unfortunately—due to a last-minute case of COVID-19—the main field trip was cancelled. The health and safety of our students is paramount and the potential risk for developing an outbreak was too great to undertake a five-day trip to a remote field site.

Instead, the class took a daytrip to explore highlights in the Tucson area. LPL’s Eric Christensen and Carson Fuls were fantastic in arranging an impromptu visit to UArizona's magnificent telescopes on Mt. Lemmon, with Carson providing an outstanding tour of the Catalina Sky Survey’s 1.5-meter (60-inch) f/1.6 telescope. The Catalina Sky Survey is responsible for the discovery of nearly half the total known near-Earth objects (NEO) population and it was incredible to not only see the massive telescope, but also to learn about the lightning-fast processing techniques used to identify the NEOs in near-real time.

After descending the mountain—stopping at several magnificent overlooks from the Catalina mountains along the way—the class visited Tanque Verde Falls for a hike to explore the local geology and natural beauty of the Tucson area.

Later in the semester, the class met for an off-campus social event to get to know one another better and hear the excellent presentations that the students had prepared for the field trip. In the coming year, we plan to return to Northern Arizona and anticipate this will be an excellent opportunity for students to explore aeolian landforms deposited during the time of Pangea as well as more recent products of fluvial erosion—ranging from slot canyons to Glen Canyon, Monument Valley, the Painted Desert, Petrified Forest, and aspects of Native American history and culture in the region.

In the meantime, students are preparing for an exciting field trip to the Big Island of Hawai'i in March 2023, which will be led by Shane Byrne, Christopher Hamilton, and Brett Carr. Students will explore the island's incredible volcanic landscapes---including products of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption in the East Rift Zone and this year’s new eruption from Mauna Loa (the world’s largest active volcano)---as a planetary analog.

You can support future field study opportunities by donating to the Wilkening-Sill endowment.                                                    

Carson Fuls provides a tour of the Catalina Sky Survey's 1.5-meter (60-inch) telescope on Mt. Lemmon.

Reed Spurling, PTYS Undergraduate Minor

Reed Spurling is a senior majoring in Aerospace Engineering with minors in Math and Planetary Sciences (PTYS). Favorite PTYS courses include PTYS 411, Geology and Geophysics of the Solar System and PTYS 442, Mars. Another favorite was Regents' Professor Dante Lauretta's Spacecraft Mission Design class; for this course, students were split into three teams to design concepts for robotic solar system missions. This classwork enabled Reed to successfully apply for a summer internship at KinetX, a company that navigates the Lucy and New Horizons solar system missions for NASA.

Reed works with Drs. Virginia Gulick and Stefano Nerozzi to analyze flood channel systems on Mars. He maps the locations and sizes of impact craters in and around these channels and then runs statistics on the data to determine an approximate age for the channels. Reed also works with Aerospace professors Sergey Shkarayev and Adrien Bouskela on communication systems for dynamic soaring sailplane gliders. Engineless sailplanes should be able to fly for extended periods of time above Earth, Mars, Venus, Titan, and other planets with sufficient atmospheres, bridging gaps in observing capabilities between orbiting missions and surface missions.

Reed is the founder of the UArizona Near Space Club and is planning on a career in solar system exploration. When not in class or mapping craters, Reed likes to cook and read.

Meet Arnaud Salvador, Postdoctoral Research Associate

Dr. Arnaud Salvador joined LPL in August 2022 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. He works with Associate Professor Tyler Robinson on the characterization of rocky exoplanets observed in direct imaging. In particular, he investigates the capabilities of future direct imaging observatories in retrieving atmospheric properties and surface conditions of distant rocky worlds. By considering the effects of observational constraints and prior information, his work aims to refine instruments design and define the most efficient observing strategies at recognizing a habitable planet.

Another aspect of his research is dedicated to the early evolution of rocky planets, focusing on the cooling, solidification, and outgassing of the magma ocean in interaction with the atmosphere, and the implications for early water ocean formation on Earth, Venus, and exoplanets.

Arnaud received his B.S. in Earth Sciences from Blaise Pascal University (Clermont-Ferrand, France) in 2013, his M.S. in Planetary Sciences from the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 2015, and his Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences from Paris-Saclay University in 2018. He was then a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), and Northern Arizona University in January 2021.

Arnaud enjoys playing table tennis, skateboarding, reading, being in nature, and watching the night sky.

Thanks to LPL Donors

We would like to thank all those who have donated to LPL in 2022. Thanks to everyone for supporting research, education, and outreach at LPL.

Individual Donors

Corporate and Foundation Donors

Edward Beshore
Gordan Bjoraker
Richard Bruns
Daniel Cavanaugh
David Choi
Laura Dugie
Katherine Gall
William Hubbard
Guy Jette
Michael Kaiserman
Colin Leach
Robert McMillan
Michelle Rouch
Timothy Swindle
 
 

Recent PTYS Graduates

Patrick O'Brien
October 31, 2022
The Rise and Fall of Lunar Topography
 
New position: Research Scientist, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics/University of Colorado, Boulder

Benjamin Sharkey
December 9, 2022

From Earth to Neptune: The Mineralogical Properties of Small Planetary Satellites and Co-orbital Objects

Advisor: Professor Vishnu Reddy

New position: Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Arizona

Alessondra Springmann
July 20, 2022

Heating of Small Solar System Body Materials

Advisor: Professor Walt Harris

New position: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Southwest Research Institute

Joana Voigt
September 26, 2022

Effusive Volcanism on Earth and Mars

Advisor: Associate Professor Christopher Hamilton

New position: Postdoctoral Research Associate, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference (LPLC) 2022

by Claire Cook

The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference (LPLC) marks the start of the academic year for the LPL community and other planetary scientists in the Tucson area. This year, LPLC was hosted in a hybrid format on August 19. Over 70 participants gathered at the Kuiper Building and on Zoom to watch 30 presentations given by faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students from LPL and other departments. Among the five invited speakers was Galen Bergsten, winner of the “Best Grad Student Presentation” in 2021. Galen gave a great talk titled There’s No Place Like Home: Exoplanets and Accessibility in a Local Context, which addressed both exoplanet science and how to make the science more inclusive and accessible. The “Best Grad Student Presentation” award went to Sam Myers, with a talk on near-Earth asteroids titled Comparing NEATM-like Models to IRTF and NEOWISE Data to Constrain Model Results. Sam will be invited to present at LPLC in 2023.

In addition to the invited speakers, 25 others gave presentations about their current or upcoming research. LPLC concluded with a keynote from OSIRIS-APEX Deputy Principal Investigator Dr. Michael Nolan on The OSIRIS-APEX Mission. A catered reception followed the conference, helping to keep the discussions going and bringing together the local planetary science community. The LPLC Organizing Committee, composed solely of LPL graduate students, is proud of this year's excellent turnout, engagement, and participation. We wish to thank the Tucson planetary science community for your continued support and are looking forward to another successful conference next fall!

NEO Surveyor Approved for Launch

The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor project recently passed its Key Decision Point C review and NASA has approved the mission for flight launch is scheduled no earlier than June 2028.

NEO Surveyor is an infrared space telescope designed to help advance NASA’s planetary defense efforts by expediting the ability to discover and characterize at least 90% of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit, collectively known as near-Earth objects, or NEOs. NEO Surveyor’s successful completion of this review furthers NASA’s commitment to planetary defense and the search for NEOs that could one day pose an impact threat to Earth.

LPL Professor Amy Mainzer is Principal Investigator for the NEO Surveyor mission.

UArizona Gets Top Marks for Space Sciences Research

Recent rankings by U.S. News & World Report and the National Science Foundation (NSF) once again recognize UArizona as one of the world's top research institutions.

UArizona ranked 108 out of 2,000 higher education institutions across 95 countries in the 2023 by U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities ranking, released on Oct. 24. The university was No. 44 among universities in the U.S. and No. 23 among public universities. UArizona again earned its best placement in the space science category, placing No. 10 overall, No. 6 (up from No. 7 last year) in the U.S. and No. 2 among public universities. The university earned top marks for its research reputation in space sciences, along with the number of citations and publications by UArizona researchers.

U.S. News & World Report's Best Global Universities ranks colleges and universities in 47 separate subjects. UArizona earned a spot on 34 of the subject ranking lists. The university's overall research reputation ranked No. 49 in the U.S. and No. 94 globally. To produce the global rankings, U.S. News & World Report uses a methodology that focuses on a university's global and regional reputation and academic research performance using indicators such as citations and publications. U.S. News uses a separate methodology for the subject-specific rankings that is based on academic research performance in each subject. U.S. News uses various measures, including publications and citations, as well as indicators for global and regional reputation in each specific subject area.

On Dec. 13, the NSF Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey again ranked UArizona among the nation's top public research universities, with $770 million in total research activity in fiscal year 2021. The HERD survey annually ranks more than 900 colleges and universities and is considered the primary source of information on research and development expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities. UArizona also retained its No. 1 ranking in astronomy and astrophysics (including planetary science) expenditures at more than $113 million – more than $40 million ahead of the No. 2-ranked university.

UArizona saw an increase of more than $9 million over its fiscal year 2020 total. Research and development expenditures rank No. 20 among public institutions and No. 36 overall, placing UArizona in the top 4% of all U.S. universities ranked in this list, both public and private. UArizona ranked No. 5 in NASA-funded activity and No. 6 in the physical sciences.

UArizona has held the No. 1 ranking in astronomy/astrophysics and planetary science expenditures each year since 1987.

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