Summer 2024
Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis have launched a balloon-borne telescope to unlock the secrets of astrophysical black holes and neutron stars, some of the most extreme objects in the universe.
A state-of-the-art dilution refrigerator has recently been installed in James Buckley's new research lab, providing a cooling capacity that is 300 times colder than outer space.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., will build a moonquake detector for astronauts to deploy on the moon in 2026 during the Artemis III mission, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years.
The Center has grown! We now have over 100 members and affiliates, including faculty fellows, research scientists and staff, postdoctoral scholars, graduate student fellows, and summer interns. The science being done by our members is phenomenal.
Owing to our growth, we have made two important additions. Mike Nowak has been appointed as our new associate director, bringing his tremendous expertise in astrophysics. He will play a vital role in keeping us up to date with Physics activities and contributing to our long-term planning. Another is our communications specialist, Alison Verbeck. Alison is working to promote the achievements of our members and raising awareness about MCSS-related events. She also produces the MCSS Messenger and works hard to keep our website up to date.
Mission involvement is a major area of opportunity for us. Our members are involved in design and development of instruments for flight opportunities, high altitude and orbital experiments, payloads for lunar and planetary exploration, proposing Probe-class astrophysics and New Frontiers planetary science missions, and on science teams for flagship missions. Our researchers and laboratories are busy studying the wide range of planetary and astromaterials brought to Earth. And our theorists are engaged in improving our understanding of the origin and evolution of our solar system and its planets as well as other solar systems, the characteristics of high-energy astrophysical phenomena and multi-messenger signals, the nature of dark matter, and tests of quantum field theory and the standard model of particle physics. MCSS supports these kinds of activities which bring recognition to our departments, the School of Arts & Sciences, and the University. We live in a truly exciting time for space science and must convey this excitement to our students, the University, and the general public.
I leave you with this quote from Victor Hugo, which has been for many years a motto for the McDonnell Center: “Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the grander view?” Nearly 50 years after the inception of the Center, we continue to be inspired by these words and amazed at what we see.
Meenakshi Wadhwa, School Director and Foundation Professor, School Of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University presented the 2023 Robert M. Walker Distinguished Lectures. The colloquia was titled, "Exploration of the Solar System via Sample Return Missions" and the public lecture was titled, "Bringing Mars Samples Back to Earth."
Christopher Reynolds, Professor at the University of Maryland College Park and Director of the Joint Space Science Institute presented the 2024 McDonnell Distinguished Lectures. The colloquia was titled, "Exploring the Axion-Sector with X-ray Astronomy" and the public lecture was titled, "The “What, How, Where and When” of Supermassive Black Holes."
Scientists from Washington University in St. Louis have launched a balloon-borne telescope to unlock the secrets of astrophysical black holes and neutron stars, some of the most extreme objects in the universe.
Dr. Tansu Daylan joined Washington University in St. Louis in August 2023 as an assistant professor of physics and faculty fellow in the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences. Since then, he has been busy seeding new research initiatives, establishing his group AstroMusers, and teaching a brand-new exoplanet course in the fall.
Lunar swirls are light-colored, sinuous features on the Moon’s surface, bright enough to be visible from a backyard telescope. Some people think they look like the brushstrokes in an abstract painting. But these are not mere artistic flourishes: NASA images show that the tendrils from some lunar swirls extend for hundreds of miles. “Impacts could cause these types of magnetic anomalies,” said Michael Krawczynski. He notes that meteorites regularly deliver iron-rich material to areas on the Moon’s surface. “But there are some swirls where we’re just not sure how an impact could create that shape and that size of thing.”
Saori Pastore and Maria Piarulli are part of a group of scientists shaping the theoretical framework behind exciting new experiments at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a $730 million U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science research facility.
Bradley Jolliff was selected by NASA as part of the Artemis III geology team that will develop the surface science plan for the first crewed lunar landing mission in more than 50 years.
Disassembling the SuperTIGER payload
The observatory at Tyson Research Center is seen under the starry night sky. (Photo: Whitney Curtis/Washington University)
Staff Scientist Piers Koefoed is processing Bennu samples in the extraterrestrial clean lab.
Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences The Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has named William B. McKinnon, a professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, the winner of its 2023 Kuiper Prize for outstanding contributions to planetary science.
Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor of Physics Henric Krawczynski was installed as the Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professor of Physics during a ceremony February 29 at the Whittemore House. His installation lecture was titled “The Bright Side of Black Holes.”
James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor Emeritus Raymond Arvidson has been awarded an Outstanding Public Leadership Medal from NASA. The honor, his fourth service medal from NASA, marks the culmination of a storied career in planetary exploration that goes back to the first Viking Mars landers in the 1970s. In addition, Arvidson was been honored with the 2023 Earth Science in United States Leader Award in recognition of his contributions to the field of Earth Science.
Assistant Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences Claire Masteller won a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation for her project “Capturing the translation of wave climate to coastal change on rocky shorelines across scales.”
Assistant Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences Roger Michaelides has won a prestigious fellowship from NASA’s Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science (ECIP-ES). Michaelides will use the three-year, $300,000 award for a project using imaging radar to monitor Arctic permafrost, frozen layers of soil that cover about a quarter of the landmass of the Northern Hemisphere.
Assistant Professor of Physics Yajie Yuan was selected for the Simons Collaboration on Extreme Electrodynamics of Compact Sources.
Associate Professors of Physics Ryan Ogliore was promoted with tenure to associate professor of physics on July 1, 2023. Maria Piarulli was promoted with tenure to associate professor of physics effective July 1, 2024.
Assistant Professor of Physics Alex Chen joined the physics faculty tenure track as an assistant professor of physics, effective July 1, 2023.
Do you want to know what our alumni have been doing? Would you like to submit an update of your own? Check out our Alumni page!
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