APPLETON, WIS. — A Lawrence University astrophysicist specializing in the formation of solar systems has been awarded a $105,000 research grant by the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program.
Associate Professor of Physics Megan Pickett will use the three-year grant to support her on-going research on the origin of Jupiter and other giant planets as well as the more than 200 known extrasolar planets orbiting other stars.
Pickett, who has been investigating this topic for the past 10 years, utilizes high-speed computers to simulate the evolution of our solar system shortly after it formed some 5 billion years ago. The computer-generated simulations attempt to determine exactly how Jupiter came into existence.
“Astronomers to date have detected more than 200 extrasolar planets that orbit other stars, all of them presumably like Jupiter,” said Pickett. “According to current estimates, at least 10 percent of all stars like our sun have planets around them. Despite their prevalence and Jupiter’s importance in our own solar system, the issue of giant planet formation remains one of the outstanding and hotly debated problems in planetary science today.”
In addition to funding her primary research, the NASA grant will support a summer student research assistant as well as publication costs and travel to scientific conferences. This is the fourth NASA PG&G program research grant Pickett has been awarded since 1997, with her funding support totaling more than $500,000.
NASA’s PG&G program supports scientific investigations that will improve the understanding of the extent and influence of planetary geological and geophysical processes on the bodies of the solar system, the origin and evolution of the solar system and the nature of Earth and its history in comparison to other planets.
Pickett, who began her career as a postdoctoral research associate in 1995 at the NASA-Ames Research Center, spent seven years teaching in the physics and astronomy department at Purdue University Calumet before joining the Lawrence faculty last fall.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Cornell University, a master’s degree in astronomy from Indiana University and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Indiana.
