MIT admits two recipients of the Heising-Simons Foundation's 51 Pegasi b Fellowship for the year 2022.
Rebel Rocketeers Graced by MIT's School of Science:
The MIT School of Science has snatched up postdocs Malena Rice and Eva Scheller, the recipients of the 2022 51 Pegasi b Fellowship. The prestigious announcement was made by the Heising-Simons Foundation on March 31.
The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship, owing its name to the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a sun-like star, was established in 2017. Its purpose is to grant postdocs the opportunity to conduct theoretical, observational, and experimental research in planetary astronomy.
Eva Scheller will be nestled under the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS), working with professors Tanja Bosak and Ben Weiss. She plans to delve deeper into the unanswered questions surrounding water on Mars to put the Red Planet's history in perspective with other rocky planets.
"Mars still harbors a bagful of puzzling, unsolved mysteries," Scheller confesses. "Even though Earth and Mars kick-started on the same trajectory, a crucial difference happened during the geological processes that rendered Mars more unfriendly to life. That's the enigma I intend to pursue during my fellowship."
Initially, Scheller will examine chemical reactions between water and basalt, the most prevalent rock found on Mars, in a laboratory experiment. The outcomes will offer insight into whether old liquid water environments affected the planet's climate and habitable potential. Following that, Scheller will embark on remote fieldwork using NASA's Perseverance rover to ascertain if water was once hidden in a vital region of Mars' crust. After combining the results, she plans to model life-sustaining conditions on terrestrial planets with the aim of supporting future observations in the solar system and beyond, saying "I'm eager to see how upcoming missions to Venus, data from the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Perseverance rover on Mars facilitate an interplanetary comparison of processes that either allow or prevent habitability."
Scheller completed her Ph.D. in geological and planetary sciences from Caltech in February. It was during an exchange program at Caltech that Scheller felt the urge to probe Mars' enigmatic water past. As a window between laboratory experimentation, remote data science, and theory, Scheller dove deep into the history of geological processes on terrestrial planets to decode markers of habitability.
In a significant breakthrough, she confirmed that most of Mars' water was locked within its crust, challenging the prevailing theory that it had escaped through the atmosphere. Scheller then deduced crucial findings related to ancient water environments and organic compounds with the Perseverance rover. She led a collaboration to synthesize the findings from an extended Perseverance rover mission to acquire samples from a sequence of ancient Martian rocks she characterized and defined.
"Traversing the great outdoors as a child made me realize that each rock has a captivating story to tell about our origin and our planet's destiny," Scheller shared.
Malena Rice will join the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, where she will collaborate with Senior Research Scientist George Ricker. Using machine learning methods and advanced computational techniques, Rice's research endeavors to discover groundbreaking detections of outer solar system bodies, including Planet Nine and interstellar objects (ISOs) that dash through the solar system. She will also compare the shapes and sizes of distant objects to the pancake-like ISOs detected thus far, shedding light on the types of bodies commonly found in the outer reaches of planetary systems.
"Our solar system is the foundation for understanding how planetary systems function on a large scale," she states. "It's crucial to consider both our own solar system and extrasolar systems when constructing a comprehensive theoretical understanding of how planetary systems are born and evolve."
Rice recently earned her Ph.D. in astronomy from Yale University. A career that took her across Spain, Iceland, and the Great Barrier Reef has seen her zero in on the far-off, unexplored corners of our solar system. She merges theory, observation, and computational techniques in her investigations of the outer solar system and its untapped potential for astronomical discoveries—including Planet Nine, a hypothetical icy world lurking beyond Neptune.
" finding another planet in our solar system would be fantastic – and rewrite all our textbooks! Even if Planet Nine isn't there, we'll explore different avenues that are equally intriguing," she says.
In her current research, Rice hunts for Planet Nine using a novel method that layers thousands of images captured by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), a space telescope initially designed to search for exoplanets. Her contributions have propelled the field closer to verifying the existence of unseen distant planets and smaller objects—the building blocks that could hold secrets about the birth of planetary systems.
"It's sensational that we can study the Big Bang in great detail, yet the outer solar system remains a mysterious frontier. The distant objects that reside there can disclose an enormous amount about the beginnings and growth of our solar system," she concludes.
Besides Rice and Scheller, other postdocs and their host institutions this year include Paul Dalba at the University of California at Santa Cruz; Leonardo Krapp and Brittany Miles at the University of Arizona; Shreyas Vissapragada at Harvard University; J.J. Zanazzi at the University of California at Berkeley; and Michael Zhang at the University of Chicago.
The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship, initiated by the Heising-Simon Foundation, offers eight fellows up to $385,000 over three years for independent research to improve our understanding of planetary system formation and evolution, as well as technology to help discover other worlds. The fellowship also sets up mentorships for fellows with established faculty at their host institutions and hosts an annual summit to foster collaboration and build professional networks.
You can find more about the fellowship and the other fellows at www.51pegasib.org.
- Malena Rice's research at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research aims to discover groundbreaking detections of outer solar system bodies, including Planet Nine and interstellar objects.
- The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship provides fellows with up to $385,000 over three years to conduct independent research in planetary astronomy.
- Eva Scheller will delve deeper into the unanswered questions surrounding water on Mars at the MIT School of Science's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences.
- Scheller aims to support future observations in the solar system and beyond by modeling life-sustaining conditions on terrestrial planets.
- The 51 Pegasi b Fellowship also sets up mentorships for fellows with established faculty at their host institutions.
- Malena Rice collaborates with Senior Research Scientist George Ricker at the Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, using machine learning methods and advanced computational techniques.
- Paul Dalba, Leonardo Krapp, Brittany Miles, Shreyas Vissapragada, J.J. Zanazzi, and Michael Zhang are among the other postdocs this year who received the 51 Pegasi b Fellowship.
- The Heising-Simons Foundation established the 51 Pegasi b Fellowship in 2017 to grant postdocs the opportunity to conduct research in planetary astronomy.
- Scheller's research focuses on unlocking Mars' mysterious water past, putting the Red Planet's history in perspective with other rocky planets, and understanding its climate and habitable potential.
