There are 25 undergraduate students pursuing their minor program of study in Planetary Sciences. These students have varied major home departments, including Astronomy, Engineering, Chemistry, and Geosciences. We're proud to profile one of our undergraduate minor students in this semester's newsletter.

David Cantillo

Planetary science has always been appealing to me because it connects my research interests in astronomy with a more hands-on, geological perspective. When I heard that the University of Arizona was offering planetary sciences as a minor, it was an easy choice my freshman year of college.

What has been your favorite Planetary Sciences class and why? 

They've all been great, though the most influential was certainly the comets class (PTYS 4/595B, Observational Campaigns, Professor Walt Harris) that I took my first semester. I quickly learned that comets can be extremely dynamic and complex bodies, and the class was a wonderful introduction to graduate students I'm still in touch with now. The trip up to the 61" telescope on Mt. Bigelow is also something I'll always remember!

What are your future goals?

I would love to earn a doctoral degree and work in small bodies, space situational awareness, and/or astrobiology research.

Are you working on any current research projects?

Most recently, I was working on a project with Dr. Vishnu Reddy where we made a laboratory regolith mixture that matched the surface composition of the large metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. Finding Psyche's surface composition was an extremely rewarding project and I was excited to help contribute to the field with my first lead-author paper. Now, I'm working on a similar project where I'm looking at 16 Psyche in the visible range of light with groundbased telescopes at Biosphere II. From this, we hope to better constrain the nature of hydration on its surface.

Tell us about yourself.

In high school, I was really into astrophotography and would travel around Maryland to find the best spots without light pollution. This is largely what led me to study planetary sciences in the first place. Now, I've been focused on music throughout college. I've played guitar and bass in local bands for the past four years, and I'm the singer and lead songwriter for my current band, Daytrails. We played a show at this year's Art of Planetary Science and released our first single the same day.

I have my research advisor, Dr. Vishnu Reddy, to thank for helping me navigate the world of planetary science and college itself. He cares a lot about his students and I can't thank him enough for helping me get where I am today. Throughout the pandemic, he's been extremely compassionate and a great mentor.

  Sara Knutson

  Anjani Polit

Sara Knutson and Anjani Polit were each recognized by NASA for their outstanding work with the OSIRIS-REx mission.

Sara received an individual Robert H. Goddard Award for her work as Science Operations Lead Engineer at the OSIRIS-REx Science Processing and Operations Center. The citation for Sara’s Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering reads, "For systems engineering excellence, teamwork, and leadership of the science implementation activities on the OSIRIS-REx mission.” 

Anjani and the OSIRIS-REx Planning and Implementation team she leads were honored with the Robert H. Goddard Award for their outstanding work in planning the science observations of Bennu. Anjani was previously awarded a Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Goddard Awards recognize exemplary achievements in spaceflight.

We would like to thank all those who have donated to LPL in 2021. Thanks to everyone for supporting research, education, and outreach at LPL.

On the first day of our trip, we travelled to Texas Canyon, where we visited the Triangle T Guest Ranch and exceptional granite outcrops with spherical weathering. Folks at the ranch kindly let our group explore the rock formations and guided us to see exceptional Native American petroglyphs. We then visited Willcox Playa and hiked to Fort Bowie to learn more about the region’s cultural history. The next day, we explored Chiricahua National Monument, including ancient volcanoes with spectacular hoodoo formations eroded into the 27-million-year-old Turkey Creek ignimbrite deposit. Our group of sixteen visited Massai Point, hiked the "Echo Canyon Trail," and climbed to the top of Sugarloaf to see the exceptional geologic history exposed within the walls of the valley.

For the final day or our trip, we crossed into Cave Creek Canyon, which is the largest and most biologically diverse canyon in the region. We then visited the Chiricahua Desert Museum and explored monogenetic volcanoes in San Bernardino Volcanic Field, which include exceptional mantle xenoliths. On the way home to Tucson, we enjoyed the final student presentations with ice cream in Tombstone. After two-years, it was great to explore the beautiful geology and cultural history of the Southwest again, and students are looking forward to exploring the Mojave Desert next semester with Professor Shane Byrne.

You can support the LPL field trip with a gift to the Wilkening-Sill endowment.

by Adam Battle

The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference (LPLC) marks the start of the academic year for many planetary scientists in the Tucson area. This year, LPLC 2021 reflected the cautious trend toward normal operations and was hosted in a hybrid format. For one full day, participants—all fully masked—gathered at the Michael J. Drake Building to spread out in the massive auditorium and watch presentations given by faculty, staff, and graduate students. The presentations were also live-streamed to a Zoom webinar for people to watch and ask questions virtually. At lunch time, in-person participants enjoyed viewing the expansive meteorite collection housed in the Drake building and the outdoor patio space.

Despite the strange conditions this year, LPLC had the same level of attendance as previous years, with over 70 people participating. Among the invited speakers was Teddy Kareta, the winner of the “Best Grad Student Presentation” in 2020, who gave a great talk entitled No Ice, Please: 46P/Wirtanen in the Near-Infrared. The winner of this year’s “Best Grad Student Presentation” award was Galen Bergsten, who will be invited to give a talk at LPLC in 2022. In addition to the invited speakers, 23 people gave presentations about their current or upcoming research. For a conference largely designed to bring the planetary science community together, LPLC met all of its goals despite the ongoing difficulties of the global pandemic. The conference concluded with LPL director Mark Marley's keynote on Modeling Atmospheres from Giant Planets to Cool Stars.

Dr. Emily Lichko is currently a NSF AGS (Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Arizona, working with Assistant Professor Kristopher Klein on the effects of linear and nonlinear physics on the onset and evolution of microinstabilities in space-relevant plasmas. Dr. Lichko’s research focuses on kinetic plasma physics processes in space and astrophysical plasmas, in particular as they relate to questions of particle heating and nonlinear processes that affect the evolution of collisionless, anisotropic plasmas.

Emily received her B.S. in Physics and Applied Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 2013 and her Ph.D. in 2020 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working under the supervision of Professor Jan Egedal. Outside of her research, she enjoys swimming, biking, running, and failing to replicate recipes from the Great British Bake Off.

Dr. Dominik Hintz joined LPL in May 2021 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Together with Professor Travis Barman, he works on stellar atmospheres of the Sun and solar-like low mass stars using the state-of-the-art atmosphere code PHOENIX. The project encompasses improvements of the code in order to gain valuable interpretations of the physics in the atmospheres of these stars when comparing the model spectra to real observations. In particular, the work aims at investigations of ultraviolet radiation of planet-host stars which affect the habitability of exoplanets orbiting them.

Dominik lived in Hamburg, Germany, before moving to Tucson. He earned his B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. in physics at the University of Hamburg. His Ph.D. research dealt with the investigation of stellar activity among M dwarf stars. This work focused on fitting atmosphere models to observed spectral lines from the visible to the near-infrared wavelength range using high-resolution spectra in order to improve the understanding of stellar activity among low mass stars.

During his free time, Dominik is interested in sports such as soccer, cycling, and football. He also likes to travel and to engage in outdoor activities.

The Art of Planetary Science (TAPS) was proud to hold its 8th annual exhibition this year, with the special theme of Space Travel. Like many recent events on the University of Arizona campus, the 2021 show went hybrid, hosting 112 works of art in person and a total of 300 online! The theme was well received by the artists who submitted pieces this year, with 203 of the accepted submissions dedicated to the Space Travel theme; 54 of these were displayed in the Kuiper building for the opening weekend (September 24-26).

After last year’s all-virtual show, organizers were excited to offer the in-person component again. With precautions (including a mask requirement and multiple hand sanitizing stations) taken to protect guests, the Kuiper Space Sciences building atrium and the fourth-floor atrium balcony were transformed into an art gallery, open to the public over the weekend of September 24-26. The weekend was full of special events and talks available to enjoy in-person and online. TAPS had a good showing for this year, with 450 in-person visitors!

Last year (2020) was the first for TAPS online galleries and organizers decided to make them available again this year, as they allow guests from around the world to participate and access the exhibit. Five virtual art galleries (Data Art, Fine Art, Kids Art, Space Travel Art and Space Shorts) were available to view through the end of October. The online galleries also include this year’s Art of Planetary Science at DPS submissions. This tradition was started in 2017 and is typically held at the annual DPS conference, which was online only this year. DPS participants were able to vote for their favorite piece during the conference (Oct. 3-8).

TAPS partnered this year with the Interstellar Research Group (IRG) for their 7th Symposium, which was held in Tucson concurrent with the TAPS opening weekend. The Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association provided safe solar telescope viewing with hydrogen alpha filters on Sunday afternoon. The invited speaker for SciFi Sunday was astronaut Charlie Walker, who was inspired by science fiction to pursue a career in space. He became the first astronaut with a background in industry and completed three Space Shuttle flights in the 1980s. Mr. Walker helped develop and plan the International Space Station and developed and completed some of the first biological experiments in space. The longstanding partnership between TAPS and the Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium continued this year, as they provided the planetarium space for Walker’s invited presentation. You can view Walker’s recorded presentation on the TAPS YouTube channel.

This year saw the debut of the Kids’ Art gallery, which hosted 13 pieces from young artists. Organizers hope to expand this section of our show next year. This small but mighty aspect of the art show had a big impact for some of the participants, who were invited to the artists’ reception. One young artist in particular was especially excited to hear the lecture by Dr. Christopher Hamilton, who described his research adventures in Iceland, accompanied by stunning drone footage of active volcanoes. A recording of this lecture, as well as other TAPS events and videos for each art gallery, is on the TAPS YouTube channel.

Another first for 2021 was the special satellite writing project for young humans, titled Space Shorts. This call for science fiction short stories expanded the scope of the exhibit beyond visual arts into the written word. To inspire young students to submit their short stories, TAPS partnered with the University of Arizona’s Think Tank, which chose winner Henry Payne for his short story titled Spacer.

Other opening weekend events included an album release and musical performance by the local Tucson band, Daytrails, fronted by LPL undergraduate minor, David Cantillo. Saturday included a visit from Ms. Frizzle of The Magic School Bus (More to the Story Entertainment), who interacted with guests inside the art gallery and assisted the Tucson Children’s Museum in some live science demonstrations, including making a cloud in the Kuiper atrium! Guests were invited to wear their favorite space and astronomy-themed clothing on Friday and visitors did not disappoint! Festive apparel included light-up constellation clothing, tin-foil head pieces, sun and moon masks, nebulae pants, dresses portraying various planets, meteorite petrographic skirts, and alien earrings. 

The Art of Planetary Science would like to thank all the collaborators, invited speakers and performers for contributing to this year’s show. Many thanks from all the past and current graduate student organizers of The Art of Planetary Science as well to LPL director Mark Marley for the continued support.

Travel to space with us again soon!