{"id":78278,"date":"2026-07-06T14:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=78278"},"modified":"2026-07-06T14:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T21:43:10","slug":"ivy-knudsen-grfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/ivy-knudsen-grfp\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Pluto made of?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s\u00a0what we know about the outer solar system:\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>really<\/span><\/i>\u00a0cold. Travel beyond the asteroid belt,\u00a0and\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0suddenly surrounded by ice-covered planets, stars,\u00a0moons\u00a0and many other small objects.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s\u00a0what we\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know about the outer solar system: how most of that ice\u00a0behaves.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With funding from the National Science Foundation\u2019s prestigious\u00a0<\/span>Graduate Research Fellowship Program<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(GRFP), NAU Ph.D. student<\/span>\u00a0Ivy Knudsen<\/span><\/b>\u00a0is trying to change that. Over the next three years,\u00a0she\u2019ll\u00a0use computer modeling to predict how different chemical compounds behave in the ice on Pluto, helping scientists understand how the dwarf planet formed and how shifting ice might have created pockmarks on its surface.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Knudsen said she plans to make her computer models public, a move that could advance science in space and on Earth.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Space<\/a>
Scientists have previously deduced that Pluto is made mostly of methane,\u00a0nitrogen\u00a0and carbon monoxide ices.\u00a0Photo: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0motivated by those big questions: How did the solar system form? How did things get here?\u201d Knudsen said. \u201cBut beyond that,\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0motivated by the thought that my findings can help people study fluid dynamics here on Earth. What happens if you mix a new liquid into a fuel reservoir? How does ice react if some hazardous chemical is in the ocean and makes its way to the bottom of a glacier? This software could be\u00a0broadly applicable\u00a0to aerospace,\u00a0geology\u00a0and even marine biology.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Knudsen, a Ph.D. student\u00a0who\u00a0is studying\u00a0astronomy and planetary sciences, is one of five current and former NAU students selected for the GRFP this year. The three-year program funds the fellows for three years as they conduct research and work toward their degrees.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Knudsen explained that ice is more than just cubes in your freezer. Both here on Earth and out in space, ice can be made of much more than hydrogen and oxygen. Because the high-tech James Webb Space Telescope is fitted with spectrometers, scientists have previously deduced that Pluto is made mostly of methane,\u00a0nitrogen\u00a0and carbon monoxide ices.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But how has that ice behaved over Pluto\u2019s lifetime?\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0hard to know, Knudsen said\u2014partly because\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0challenging for us to duplicate those conditions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The surface of Pluto is a\u00a0teeth-chattering\u00a0-387 degrees Fahrenheit, and \u201cit\u2019s hard to make anything that cold here on Earth,\u201d Knudsen said. \u201cWe have an astrophysical materials lab at NAU with a little chamber that makes ice\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0almost that\u00a0cold, but it takes an entire room of machines to do that. And even though\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a very high-tech lab, I\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0add one kind of ice to another kind of ice.\u00a0There\u2019s\u00a0no physical way to simulate this.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0a digital way to simulate\u00a0it, and that\u2019s where Knudsen\u2019s computer modeling comes in.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOn a computer, you can model anything you want,\u201d she said. \u201cI can ask, \u2018If I have this much methane ice and this much nitrogen ice and I put it a kilometer under the surface of Pluto, what\u2019s going to happen to it? And we can go from there.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Closeup<\/a>
Ivy Knudsen is using computer modeling to investigate how the surface of Pluto got its distinctive icy pockmarks. Photo: NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Knudsen said computer modeling work could help her find out why Pluto got its distinctive icy pockmarks, which we saw for the first time during\u00a0NASA\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>New Horizons mission<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in 2015. Experts in her field have been\u00a0puzzling\u00a0about those features for a decade: Did the marks come from collisions with small objects? Or did they come from one type of ice pushing against another type of ice just beneath the surface?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her work comes at a crucial time in astrophysics. After exploring much of the inner solar system, NASA\u2019s spacecraft\u00a0will\u00a0now\u00a0head farther afield, with proposed missions to Uranus, the small moons of Saturn and more.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re heading that way soon,\u201d Knudsen said. \u201cI\u2019m excited to make a tool we can use before we ever get there and see if we\u2019re right about some of our predictions.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before coming to NAU, Knudsen earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, where she worked in atmospheric science. She switched up her focus after meeting Kelsi Singer, a planetary scientist at Boulder\u2019s Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). For two years after graduation, Knudsen worked with Singer at SwRI, doing research on asteroids, comets, small\u00a0moons\u00a0and other small bodies in the outer solar system.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Knudsen said she chose NAU for graduate school because she loved the work her adviser,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/b>research professor\u00a0<\/span>Will Grundy<\/span><\/b>, was doing, and she clicked well with fellow prospective students.\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI love doing this kind of work\u2014the work of, \u2018We don\u2019t know anything about this yet; let\u2019s work on it for a few years and see if we can find out more,\u2019\u201d Knudsen said. \u201cI\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0believe I get paid to solve problems and work on puzzles that have real-world implications.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0so much fun.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Want to read\u00a0about more\u00a0NAU GRFP research? See our\u00a0<\/span><\/i>story about recent NAU grad and GRFP recipient Henry Garland here<\/span><\/i><\/a>, and stay tuned for more GRFP coverage. To learn more about applying for the GRFP and other scholarships and fellowships, contact academic success coordinator Lillie S. Gordon at Lillie.Gordon@nau.edu.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/span><\/p>\n


\nJill Kimball | NAU Communications
\n(928) 523-2282 | jill.kimball@nau.edu<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s\u00a0what we know about the outer solar system:\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0really\u00a0cold. Travel beyond the asteroid belt,\u00a0and\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0suddenly surrounded by ice-covered planets, stars,\u00a0moons\u00a0and many other small objects.\u00a0 Here\u2019s\u00a0what we\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know about the outer solar system: how most of that ice\u00a0behaves.\u00a0 With funding from the National Science Foundation\u2019s prestigious\u00a0Graduate Research Fellowship Program\u00a0(GRFP), NAU Ph.D. student\u00a0Ivy Knudsen\u00a0is trying to change that. Over the…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2880,"featured_media":78279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78278","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\/78278","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\/2880"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78278"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78284,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78278\/revisions\/78284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}