June 2020
Brynna Downey (PhD student) was awarded a NSF graduate student fellowship award! Congratulations! She will work on the tidal-orbital evolution of Callisto and Titan along with other moons in our solar system.
Congratulations to PhD student Jack Conrad for being awarded a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellowship! His NPP fellowship will involve studying Surface Processes, Geomorphology, and Impact Cratering with Dr. Caleb Fassett at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. He expects to start there in January 2021.
April 2020
Francis Nimmo elected to the National Academy of Sciences! This is one of the highest honors a U.S. scientist can receive. Congratulations!
March 2020
Congratulations to Professor Myriam Telus! She was awarded the NASA Planetary Science Early Career Award.
Feb. 2020
51 Pegasi b Fellow, Elizabeth Bailey, currently a finishing PhD student at Caltech, will be joining UCSC – Astronomy and Astrophysics as a 51 Pegasi b Fellow in the Fall. Elizabeth has significant interests in orbital dynamics, planet formation, and planetary interior physics. https://news.ucsc.edu/2020/03/pegasi-fellowship.html
Gravity constraints on the age and formation of the Moon’s Reiner Gamma anomaly. Paper in Icarus by Megan Kelly and Ian Garrick-Bethell. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113465
Congrats to Maggie Thompson! She was awarded the LPI Career Development Award. The funds help cover expenses to the attend the Lunar and Planetary Science conference.
Jan. 2020
Dust tides and rapid meridional motions in the Martian atmosphere during major dust storms. Paper in Nature Communications by Zhaopeng Wu, Toa Li, Xi Zhang, Jing Li, and Jun Cui. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14510-x
Congrats to Carver Bierson! He was awarded a 3-year postdoc at ASU funded by the psyche mission. He will be working with Lindy Elkins-Tanton and Joe O’Rourke.
August 1, 2019
Congratulations to Professor Xi Zhang! He was awarded the Greeley early career award from the American Geophysical Union’s Planetary Sciences section: https://eos.org/agu-news/2019-agu-section-awardees-and-named-lecturers
June 2019
Calcite and dolomite formation in the CM parent body: Insight from in situ C and O isotope analyses. Paper in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta by Myriam Telus, Conel Alexander, Eric Hauri and Jianhua Wang. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2019.06.012
May 2019
Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates. Paper in Nature Geoscience by Shunichi Kamata, Francis Nimmo, Yasuhito Sekine, et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-019-0369-8
April 8, 2019
Planetary grad student, Coby Abrahams models volcanism on metallic asteroids. Here is a link to the article: https://news.ucsc.edu/2019/04/iron-volcanoes.html
March 27, 2019
51 Pegasi b Fellow, Xinting Yu, will work on formation of clouds and hazes on exoplanets at UCSC. https://news.ucsc.edu/2019/03/xinting-yu-fellowship.html
January 18, 2019
Professor Francis Nimmo was awarded the 2019 Harold Jeffreys Lectureship by the Royal Astronomical Society.
November 1, 2018
EPS graduate student, Natalie Glines, publishes study about past lakes on Mars in Astrobiology journal. Link.
October 2, 2018
Congrats to Francis Nimmo for being awarded the 2018 Paolo Farinella Prize from the Europlanet Society for his contributions to understanding of the internal structure and evolution of icy bodies in the solar system. Link.
September 20, 2018
Congrats to Francis Nimmo for 2018 Farinella Award for his outstanding contributions to understanding the internal structure and evolution of icy bodies. Link.
May 25, 2018
EPS graduate student Huazhi Ge receives NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship award (NESSF) for his research on “Tropospheric Dynamics of Jupiter: Insights from Tracer Distributions From Juno and Ground-based Observations.” Congratulations! Link.
March 23, 2018
Ian Garrick-Bethell discusses his work on the “Age of the Lunar South Pole-Aitken Basin” at the 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. Link.
March 21, 2018
UCSC EPS graduate program ranks in the top 20 by US News and World Report. Link.
March 1, 2018
EPS graduate student Megan Kelley wins LPI Career Development Award! The funds help cover expenses to the attend the Lunar and Planetary Science conference. Congratulations! Link.
Jan. 10, 2018
Francis Nimmo’s research, published in Nature, explains that a liquid ocean lying deep beneath Pluto’s frozen surface is the best explanation for features revealed by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.
Nov. 3, 2017
UC Santa Cruz ranks in the top 5 for space sciences. Link
May 15, 2017
UCSC planetary science grad student, Nick Zube, awarded a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship for research on testing different accretion scenarios with the Hf/W system. Congrats!
Nov. 16, 2016
New analysis adds support for a subsurface ocean on Pluto. A liquid ocean deep beneath Pluto’s frozen surface is the best explanation for features revealed by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. Link.
Aug. 30, 2016
Anomalous grooves on Martian moon Phobos explained by impacts. Planetary scientists explain mysterious grooves on the surface of Mars’ moon Phobos. Link.
May 29, 2016
Congrats to Carver Bierson, UCSC planetary grad student, for winning an NSF graduate fellowship!
April 20, 2016
Enthusiasm for discovery drives Grad Slam winner. Planetary science student Michael Nayak has opened up new fields of study and planetary data analysis. Link.
March 17, 2016
Pluto’s varied landscape reveals surprisingly complex geology. It’s icy surface shows an astonishing variety of landscapes, indicating active geological processes in images from New Horizons. Link.
Dec. 14, 2015
UCSC Planetary scientist, Ian Garrick-Bethell receives 2015 Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Science. The award recognizes significant early-career contributions to planetary science. Link.
July 30, 2014
Tidal forces gave moon its shape, according to new analysis. Most of the moon’s overall shape can be explained by taking into account tidal effects acting early in the moon’s history. Link.
July 28, 2014
Cassini finds 101 geysers and more on icy Saturn moon. Scientist on NASA’s Cassini mission have identified 101 distinct geysers erupting on Saturn’s small, icy moon Enceladus. Link.
Feb, 18, 2014
UCSC planetary scientist Ian Garrick-Bethell wins Sloan Research Fellowship. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship to Ian Garrick-Bethell, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences. Link.
