Research

My primary research interest is focused on better understanding near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). We care about these objects because understanding NEAs is actually very helpful for addressing a wide variety of problems in planetary science. These problems include learning about the solar system's formation and evolution, understanding meteorites, and even preparing to protect the Earth from being impacted by an asteroid in the future. Tackling these problems though requires learning about certain key characteristics of NEAs, such as their sizes, albedos (how much light they absorb), and other physical properties of their surfaces.

One of the best ways to learn all this information about an NEA is to visit it with a spacecraft. But of course, that is very expensive (and very time consuming) and so can only be done for a few objects. Thankfully, there are a bunch of other methods for learning about NEAs, including radar observations, occultations, and highly specialized computer models. Unfortunately though, these methods also require a lot of time, specific kinds of instruments, or are simply technologically challenging, so they aren't widely applicable either.

Altogether, this means that to learn about NEAs, we generally rely on a special type of model, called a simple thermal model, that is very easy to use, and can be widely applied to a whole bunch of objects. But, there is no free lunch, and so because this model is so easy to use, it comes at the cost of the model being more prone to producing inaccurate results. Right now, my work is focused on better understanding exactly how and in what situations the model can go astray. Over the past year or so, this has also included looking into how this model works when used with data taken from different sources, such as from the ground versus from space. In the near future I hope to expand this into looking directly at how making various changes to the model assumptions can affect final results. Ultimately, the goal is to figure out the situations where the simple thermal models work well, and the situations where they don't, so that we can use them more effectively in the future.

Publications