Pages 21-22: Planetary and Space Science
Page 21: An Emerging Program at UCF
The UCF Planetary and Space Science program has been developing for nearly two years. Astronomer, and Provost’s Distinguished Research Professor, Dr. Humberto Campins heads it.
UCF and NASA have worked together on space research projects since the University’s early years in the 1960s. Last year, UCF received about $7.9 million for research on NASA projects, including work at the Kennedy Space Center. The creation of the Planetary and Space Science program adds a new dimension to UCF-NASA collaborations.
We are in an age of frequent, high-visibility NASA missions to Mars, asteroids, and comets, and the Planetary and Space Science group is taking advantage of this. Their research goals parallel those of NASA, which include the study of “origins” (such as the origins of water and life on Earth). These similar goals—combined with the university’s proximity to the Kennedy Space Center—makes the Planetary & Space Science program an excellent candidate for partnerships and collaborative research.
Page 22: Research
The Planetary & Space Science group examines areas that are immediately relevant to Earth: possible resources from asteroids and comets; the threat to our planet of a collision with one of these near-Earth bodies; studies of Earth’s closest relative, Mars, and the Martian moons, particularly Deimos; and the search for information about the origins of water on Earth and Mars.
The Planetary and Space Science program is still very young. Even so, it has been involved with numerous high-profile space missions. Recently, faculty members were involved with NASA’s highly-successful Deep Space 1 mission, which tested advanced, high-risk technologies in space, encountered Comet Borrelly, and returned the best images and data ever recovered from a comet. Planetary & Space Science faculty also worked on the Mars Pathfinder mission, which returned unprecedented results and paved the way for the two rovers currently on the surface of Mars. Both of these new rovers carry calibration targets that were fabricated by Planetary & Space Science faculty.
The research group has been assisting with several NASA missions, such as the Stardust mission. The Stardust spacecraft encountered Comet Wild 2 in January 2004 and collected cometary and interstellar dust particles. Other recent projects include participation on two new NASA telescopes: the Spitzer infrared space telescope (launched in August 2003) and the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), an airborne observatory expected to begin flying in late 2004. In addition, two of the faculty (Drs. Woodney and Britt) received a sizeable grant for a joint project with the University of Florida to study how microbial communities would survive under Martian environmental conditions.
Plans for the next two years also include ground-based support for NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft. This mission will release a solid copper projectile (about the size of a trash can) that will smash into the nucleus of comet Tempel 1. Then, the Deep Impact spacecraft will fly by and take measurements and images of the inside of the comet. The Planetary and Space Science faculty, along with the group’s post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Catherine Delahodde, will be monitoring the activity of comet Tempel 1, before, during and after the impact, which will occur on July 4, 2005. The main goal is to learn more about the composition of comets, which hold clues about the formation of the solar system and they might hold the key to understanding the origin of water and organic molecules on Earth.
Page 22: Faculty
The program’s eminent faculty are the cornerstone of its success. Each member of the Planetary and Space Science group is renowned in the field. One measure of this are the number of our faculty that have had asteroids named in their honor.
Provost Research Professor Humberto Campins (Asteroid 3327 Campins) uses ground-based, airborne, and space-based telescopes, combined with infrared techniques, to study asteroids, comets, and their possible contribution to Earth’s water and organic molecules.
Associate Professor Daniel Britt (Asteroid 4395 Danbritt) studies asteroids, comets, Mars, and the Martian moons. Professor Britt is the principal investigator on a proposal to NASA to send a Discovery mission to Deimos (Mars’ smallest moon), which will bring back to Earth samples from that moon’s surface.
Assistant Professor Yanga Fernandez (Asteroid 12225 Yanfernandez) investigates the origin and evolution of comets. He is also one of only a few recipients of a fellowship from NASA’s “Spitzer,” the largest space-based infrared telescope ever launched.
Assistant Professor Laura Woodney (Asteroid 13001 Woodney) uses optical and radio telescopes to study the chemical composition of comets and the origin of the solar system. Dr. Woodney is the principal investigator on a joint project with the University of Florida to study the possibility of life on Mars.
Associate Professor Edwardo Martin studies extra-solar planets and very low-mass stars (brown dwarfs). He is also an astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries.
Adjunct Research Scientist Glenn Sellar is an affiliated faculty member (from UCF’s Florida Space Institute). He develops new instrumentation for planetary spacecrafts with funding from several NASA programs including astrobiology.
More Information: www.physics.ucf.edu
| 
Printer Friendly Version of this Article
