{"id":69792,"date":"2023-08-22T10:23:35","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T17:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=69792"},"modified":"2023-08-22T10:23:35","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T17:23:35","slug":"finesst-awards-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/finesst-awards-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of space research? These two grad students."},"content":{"rendered":"

Two planetary science doctoral students were among a small number of students nationwide selected for competitive independent graduate fellowships awarded by NASA.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Second-year Ph.D. student <\/span>Ian Marrs<\/span><\/b> and third-year Ph.D. student <\/span>Lucas McClure<\/span><\/b> received Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) awards, which provide funding for research projects designed and performed by graduate students. The projects must contribute to NASA\u2019s science, technology and exploration goals.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Marrs,
Marrs, in a flannel shirt and hat, talks to students in the Life in the Universe class about the geology of the Grand Canyon.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hot chaos? Exploring two sides of Mars\u2019 story<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The Perseverance rover is exploring Jezero Crater and the three types of minerals\u2014olivines, serpentines and carbonates\u2014that make up rocks on the surface of the Red Planet. But how exactly those rocks formed remains a mystery.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists generally agree that ancient Jezero contained a lake; the debate centers on whether the carbonates formed directly from the other minerals or if they formed during the evaporation of that lake. These two options offer two conflicting pictures of ancient Jezero: a hot, chaotic environment that forms primary carbonates or a cold, dry environment that forms secondary carbonates.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Marrs, who also received a Graduate Research Fellowship from the NSF, hypothesizes that the rocks in the crater will have trace elements that point to their origin story; those elements can be tracked through a process called serpentinization. He has collected a variety of rocks from the mountains of California, which offer the best analog for Martian rocks in the area, and will analyze their chemistry using the same techniques available to the Perseverance rover, then compare results to the rover\u2019s data.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not all.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps the most exciting aspect of this work is that the mineralogical processes that we are studying are known to generate heat and also biologically relevant compounds such as methane,\u201d he said. \u201cThis means that we may be investigating processes that could have fueled ancient microbial life on Earth, and potentially on Mars as well.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Associate professor Mark Salvatore<\/strong>, Marrs\u2019 mentor, echoed the excitement around this research.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSerpentinization is thought to be a widespread process in the martian subsurface and one that could be potentially important for fueling biological activity, should it have ever been present on Mars,\u201d Salvatore said. \u201cIan\u2019s work will be critical in helping to develop ways to better identify and study habitable environments and processes using Mars-relevant techniques on Mars-relevant samples.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Uncovering the secrets of escaped asteroids<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n
\"Lucas
Lucas McClure and his research poster at the Asteroids, Comets, Meteors Conference in Flagstaff in June. Top photo: Illustration of the heliophysics system. Credit: NASA<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

McClure\u2019s research focuses on small bodies like asteroids and comets\u2014essentially, these are materials leftover from the formation of planets. At NAU, he studied a population of asteroids called the Polana-Eulalia Complex (PEC), which is composed of two overlapping asteroid families that are part of the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. These carbon-rich asteroids often \u201cescape\u201d out of the asteroid belt and into Earth-crossing orbits.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, they\u2019re not the only near-Earth asteroids; another one, Bennu, has been the subject of significant research among scientists. McClure is interested in how the PEC asteroids are different from Bennu; specifically, he\u2019s studying how an asteroid\u2019s size affects the light that it emits\u2014also known as the visible spectral scope.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis finding has turned out to be the start of many, many more questions and projects\u2014enough for a dissertation, one could say!\u201d McClure said. With the FINESST award, he will build on this research, including expanding his sample size to further test his early findings.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

McClure, who discovered his interest in astronomy while in high school, came to NAU via the University of Tennessee, where he met his mentor, professor <\/span>Josh Emery<\/span><\/b>. When Emery moved to NAU, McClure first came for a Research Experience for Undergraduates program, working with associate professor <\/span>Cristina Thomas<\/span><\/b>, and then came to NAU, his first-choice school, for a Ph.D. McClure contacted Emery about research opportunities as soon as he was accepted\u2014well before starting as a student.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLucas is an excellent student and researcher, and he spent a lot of good, focused effort writing and revising his FINESST proposal to convey to the reviewers the excitement and scientific importance of his research,\u201d Emery said. \u201cA lot of excellent proposals are submitted, and we are grateful for the award.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two planetary science doctoral students were among a small number of students nationwide selected for competitive independent graduate fellowships awarded by NASA.\u00a0 Second-year Ph.D. student Ian Marrs and third-year Ph.D. student Lucas McClure received Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) awards, which provide funding for research projects designed and performed…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":69794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}