Department News

Thanks to the generous gifts from friends, family, and colleagues, the Showman Distinguished Visiting Lectureship, established in memory of LPL Professor Adam Showman, has been fully endowed. This fund will allow us to bring guest lecturers to the UArizona campus in Adam's memory, in perpetuity.

The first Adam P. Showman Distinguished Visiting Lecturer will be announced in the Fall of 2021. This distinguished scholar will engage with our students and share the latest scientific discoveries from among Adam’s great diversity of interests. We can think of no better way to honor both the joy Adam exhibited in his work and his broad perspective than by bringing an outstanding scholar that embodies the same passion for scientific discovery to campus.

Adam P. Showman passed away unexpectedly on March 16, 2020, at his home in Tucson, Arizona. The international planetary science community lost an outstanding theorist, dedicated teacher, and a sought-after collaborator to a world-wide network of exoplanet astronomers.

For years, the Kuiper Space Sciences Building has had an enigmatic object on the wall of the lobby, just inside of the front entrance. It isn't very colorful, so many haven't even noticed it, but it represents a creative mixture of art and science from the early days of LPL, and has a story that is much more colorful that the wall hanging itself. Thanks to Associate Professor of Practice Steve Kortenkamp and HiRISE Photogrammetry and Imaging Processing Scientist (and LPL Ph.D. candidate) Sarah Sutton, we now have a display to help put it in context.

In the 1960s, when LPL was mapping the Moon, Gerard Kuiper hired sculptor Ralph Turner to create 3D models of areas on the lunar surface. Turner would work with telescopic images taken under different lighting conditions and mold his clay until he had something whose shadows looked right as he moved his light to match the different illuminations he had available. It is one of these sculptures, the central peak of Alphonsus crater, that has been hanging on the wall for years.

Nearly sixty years later, we still value 3D representations of planetary surfaces, but we don't generate them the same way. Instead, modern 3D images are generated by digitally combining images taken by spacecraft from different angles as they pass over (or even on different passes).

The HiRISE team, led by Sarah, are masters at generating these for Mars and for other planetary objects as well, including the Moon. In particular, images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter were used to generate 3D models of the same area that Turner sculpted. The digital model was created by Nicholas Porter while he was an undergraduate student working in the HiRISE photogrammetry lab.

Instead of using clay, the preferred method for generating 3D models is now 3D printing. Steve has 3D printed models of planetary surfaces for use in instruction for visually impaired students.

By combining the talents of our staff and modern scientific techniques and manufacturing technologies, we produced a modern model of the same region, using both modern scientific techniques and modern manufacturing techniques, and have hung it on an adjacent wall, along with text to explain what the two images are all about. We have included pictures, but they're just two-dimensional, and don't give the sense of depth that either of the models on the wall give. 

Take a look at the models, old and new, the next time you are in the Kuiper Space Sciences Building.

Congratulations to Shane Stone and Daniel Lo, LPL's newest alumni!

Shane Stone's dissertation defense was held on April 23. The title of his dissertation is Martian Upper Atmospheric Thermal Structure, Composition, and Water and Their Significance for Atmospheric Escape and Evolution. Professor Roger Yelle was Shane's dissertation advisor.

Shane has accepted a position as a NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellow at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Daniel Lo defended his dissertation, Carbon Photochemistry and Escape in the Present-day Mars Atmosphere, on May 6. Daniel was advised by Professor Roger Yelle.

Daniel has accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of Michigan.

We hope you will join us in remembering our friend and colleague Adam Showman with a gift of any size for the Adam P. Showman Distinguished Visiting Lectureship. With your generous support, we plan to establish an endowed fund that will allow LPL to bring guest lecturers to campus in Adam's memory in perpetuity. We can think of no better way to honor him than to bring exceptional planetary scientists with similarly broad interests to engage with and inspire our students, just as Adam did. Donors have already pledged a total of more than $13,000.

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 two of our Planetary Sciences undergraduate minor students in this semester's newsletter.

Shavonne Morin

I have always been interested in learning more about our solar system. More specifically, I enjoy learning about the geology and chemistry of the planets.

What has been your favorite Planetary Sciences class and why? 

Chemistry of the Solar System (PTYS 407). Dr. Swindle was an excellent professor and the subject matter was very interesting. I especially enjoyed writing my term paper on my subject of choice. A close second was Geology and Geophysics of the Solar System (PTYS 411).

What are your future goals?

I plan on pursuing a Ph.D. in planetary science, or in geology, with a planetary science emphasis. I would love to become a professor for a research university .

Are you working on any current research projects?

I am working on an optical microscopy project with Dr. Jessica Barnes (LPL). We are focused on identifying and classifying the volcanic rock fragments present in Luna 16 & 24 soil samples, as well as doing electron microprobe analysis of the volcanic rock fragments identified. I also work as DTM (3D digital terrain map) producer for the HiRISE mission (LPL) where I make maps of the surface of Mars for planetary scientists. In my time there, I have made about 20 DTMs.

Tell us about yourself.

I have a passion for sustainability; I am called the recycling sheriff in my house and I love to shop secondhand at thrift stores. In my free time (which I have very little) I like to watch Netflix or YouTube, or read, to decompress.

There are 20 undergraduate students pursuing their minor program of study in Astrobiology. These students have varied major home departments, including Astronomy, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Aerospace Engineering. We're proud to profile one of these Astrobiology minor students in this semester's newsletter.

Why did you choose Astrobiology as a minor?

I love both biology and astronomy and am interested in pursuing astrobiology research later in my career.

What has been your favorite Astrobiology class and why? 

The Mars elective [PTYS 442] taught by Regents Professor Alfred McEwen. In that class I was able to use the HiRISE camera to take photos of Mars. This was a really cool opportunity that I did not expect to have, and it gave me valuable experience.

What are your future goals?

I am taking a gap year after I graduate, and then I plan to go to graduate school and get a Ph.D. in astronomy or planetary science. I hope to become involved in astrobiology through a career in academia or by working on NASA astrobiology missions. I am especially interested in looking for signs of ancient life on Mars and investigating the habitability of outer solar system moons like Titan and Europa.

Are you working on any current research projects?

I am currently working on my senior thesis with Regents Professor Dante Lauretta. I am helping to design the spectral imaging system that will be used to study the sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu that will be returned by the OSIRIS-REx mission. Studying Bennu will hopefully reveal new information about the origins and composition of early Earth.

Tell us about yourself.

Outside of my scientific studies, I am very interested in music. I am the Head Music Director at KAMP student radio here on campus and I enjoy playing electric guitar in my free time. I also love to draw, paint, and cook.

The photo I chose is a photo of me on the top platform of the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia! Working toward this minor has allowed me to take some fascinating classes and has helped me realize how passionate I am about the search for life beyond Earth.

The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) has launched a citizen science program available from the Zooniverse platform. 

The Catalina Outer Solar System Survey aims to discover Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), the most distant objects in our solar system. Observers with the CSS, whose primary mission is to find near-Earth asteroids (some of the closest objects in the solar system), review and compare CSS images of the night sky taken over a period of several months. These observers scan for TNOs by identifying their slow movement through the series of images. After potential TNOs have been filtered and identified by a computer, citizen scientists are engaged to review the image data and determine whether a TNO has been discovered.

If you would like to learn more and join the hunt for TNOs, visit the Catalina Outer Solar System Survey site.

LPL has partnered with the ASTEROIDS Laboratory (Asteroid Science, Technology and Exploration Research Organized by Inclusive eDucation Systems), a new, multi-disciplinary research and educational unit based in the UArizona Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (AME) department and sponsored by NASA’s Minority Undergraduate Research and Education Program (MUREP). The laboratory will apply planetary science principles to conceive, implement and validate space technologies—from systems design and control solutions, to robots and sensor networks, to mobility and excavation platforms for asteroid exploration and mining. The new lab is creating dozens of direct research opportunities for undergraduate students, thereby increasing the diversity of student and faculty involvement related to small missions in near-Earth space.

Students who join ASTEROIDS lead their own research projects under the mentorship of faculty and work with a team of experienced graduate students and staff to build a space-bound CubeSat that will advance planetary science objectives. The project's principal investigator, Professor Jekan Thanga (AME), leads engineering efforts to develop small satellite mission concepts. Professor Erik Asphaug (LPL) directs the scientific research and oversees how theories and models will be translated into hypotheses that can be tested by experiments and missions. Dr. Stephen Schwartz (LPL) serves as Technical Program Manager; he is also a Participating Scientist on the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample-return mission and an instrument co-investigator on the Hayabusa2 mission. Before becoming the project's Administrative Program Manager, Layne Crawford was a science teacher at Desert View High School (Tucson); while a student at UArizona, Layne was a NASA Arizona Space Grant intern who studied HiRISE Mars data with Regents' Professor Alfred McEwen. “I want to draw on that history to assist in building similarly impactful and life-shaping experiences for our students,” says Crawford. Other ASTEROIDS co-investigators include: Research Professor Greg Ogden (Chemical and Environmental Engineering) who studies propulsion with a focus on water extraction and propellant production from in-situ resources found on asteroids; Professor Desiree Cotto-Figueroa (Universidad Puerto Rico, Humacao), who investigates the geomechanical properties of meteorites and is a Survey Team member for the upcoming NEO Surveyor Mission; and Professor Dennis Just (Astronomy/Physics, Pima Community College) who provides overlapping research and education opportunities to Pima students.

One of the centerpiece activities for the ASTEROIDS Laboratory is the development of AOSATs, or Asteroid Origin Satellites. These relatively low-cost 3U CubeSats, each about the size of a loaf of bread, are being designed to orbit the Earth and spin at approximately 1 rpm (the speed of a clock's second-hand) to simulate the weak but non-zero gravity field of asteroids. AOSATs have a customizable chamber that can be used for studying basic physics of asteroid accretion and evolution, or for testing technological approaches to asteroid mobility and excavation, or for developing approaches to water or mineral extraction under realistic gravity. Lessons learned from these AOSATs will be applied to the design of larger Earth orbiting satellites that can serve as permanent low-gravity research testbeds for the full-scale validation of future asteroid technologies, from exploration to resource extraction to hazard mitigation.  “With our moral support, the students are taking leading roles in the conceptualization, design and development of small-satellites and are advancing a myriad of space science and technology concepts,” says Thanga. “Our program is seeking to empower a new generation of students bursting with optimism and that is representative of the rich diversity of modern America with much the same can-do spirit of the 1960s space program, fearlessly try, do, fail and try again till you succeed!”

In that spirit of exploration, the ASTEROIDS program encourages new ideas and unconventional methods—examples include: efficient sample return from dozens of asteroids in one mothership mission; multi-spacecraft deployments of seismic and ground-penetrating sensors for global imaging of asteroid interiors; coordinated swarms of small-satellites to perform rapid imaging, multipoint observations, and persistent observations of surface features or events; orbiters that can perform multiple landings and resource assessments balanced on one or two extended booms; and a tiny inflatable lander that stays upright as a low-cost imaging/sensing outpost or node on the rapidly-rotating landscape. “Those of us who grew up on Star Trek know that the spaceships of the 23^rd century will be made out of asteroid materials,” says Asphaug. “The science and engineering fields in academics can do much more to be representative of the diverse populations that we serve, and by focusing on small missions we’re creating a kind of melting pot where a lot of new ideas can come together and rapidly advance.”

by Allison McGraw

Organizers of the seventh exhibition of The Art of Planetary Science (TAPS) were met with new challenges and unexpected opportunities. For the first six exhibitions, TAPS was a physical event that attracted approximately 1,000 guests to the Kuiper Space Sciences Building, which was transformed into a gallery displaying works of space art. This year, due to COVID restrictions, TAPS went completely virtual in displaying art galleries as well as in hosting speakers and ceremonies for the event.

The virtual event allowed for participation from a broader scope of artists and attendees who may not have been able to participate in past TAPS exhibitions, resulting in a record number of submissions (nearly 450). To accommodate viewing, three virtual art galleries (Data Art, Fine Art and Moon Art) were available online from September 25-October 31. Video loops of the submitted art are available to view on the TAPS web site and the TAPS YouTube channel.  We plan to use the virtual art gallery capabilities in future exhibitions to maintain that accessibility for our international colleagues and guests.

For the first time in TAPS history, a special sub-theme category of Moon art was added in order to honor the history of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. The Moon Art gallery was very popular, and included over 100 submissions. This year's International Observe the Moon Night (September 26) was a great opportunity for TAPS highlight and celebrate lunar art with observers around the world. Moon-themed presentations from Steve Kortenkamp, Alfred McEwen, Steve Larson and Jessica Barnes helped show off the many years of lunar science, exploration, and continued research at LPL. The Moon “SLAM” poetry segment was a hit, despite being completely virtual. Our partnership with Flandrau Science Center & Planetarium continued this year, with a streamed showing of Desert Moon, a documentary about the role that Gerard Kuiper and LPL played in the space race and the Apollo program. This was accompanied by a live Q&A with the creator/director of the film, Jason Davis. Thanks to the Mt. Lemmon Sky Center, participants were able to observe the Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn live on NASA TV. 

Other opening weekend events included an invited talk from the founder of TAPS, Dr. Jamie Molaro, a presentation from Adam Block about the interpretation of astronomical images, Flandrau’s first live planetarium show since March, a musical performance by Satellite Mirage, an invited dance titled The Tides of Mars from Circuit, virtual solar telescope observing with Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, live painting with Laci Brock, astrophotography tips with Bettymaya Foott, Director of Engagement for the International Dark-Sky Association, and an artist feature presentation from Chrys Kapuranis. Closing events included a Haunted Skies planetarium show, live at Flandrau, and a public telescope evening that was held in October. There was even a musical finale with Nerd Immunity and DDouble Life providing a rock-and-roll space-music stream. You can view the virtual presentations and musical performances on the TAPS YouTube channel.

The Art of Planetary Science would like to thank all the speakers, presenters, and performers for contributions during this tumultuous time for humans on Earth. Thanks, too, to Joshua Sosa for developing the virtual art gallery capability for our web site. And many special thanks from all the past and current TAPS organizers go to LPL Director and Department Head Dr. Timothy Swindle for the support he has provided for The Art of Planetary Science through the years. Without Tim, TAPS would not have not come into existence and continued to flourish.

Best wishes to all on your virtual odyssey!

Anjani Polit was awarded a Robert H. Goddard Exceptional Achievement Award for Engineering by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Anjani is a project manager for the Earth Dynamics Observatory and the Mission Implementation Senior Systems Engineer for OSIRIS-REx. In this role, she is responsible for the Science Planning and Implementation process, balancing the competing constraints from the different Science Team elements at the University of Arizona, the Lockheed Martin Spacecraft team, and the Goddard-led Flight Dynamics team. She also served as the Vice-Chair of the Site Selection Board.

Anjani has participated in proposal and operations development for a number of missions, including current roles as Science Operations Manager for the proposed Io Volcano Observer and Deputy Project Manager for the proposed RUSHeS instrument. Before joining OSIRIS-REx in October 2016, Anjani was a Targeting Specialist for the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Uplink Operations Lead for HiRISE. During this time, Anjani planned and commanded over 10,000 images of Mars. Anjani holds a B.A. in Geology from Pomona College and an M.S. in Geological Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno.