About Lucy McFadden
Always Look Up!
My professional career as a planetary scientist studying the formation of solar system bodies has involved telescopic measurements of asteroids, the Moon and comets, laboratory spectral reflectance measurements of meteorites, and photometric analysis of spectra and images from spacecraft traveling to small solar system bodies. Additionally, I have developed and managed programs both at the University and in my local community that provide educational activities designed to inspire in students a love of learning and to develop the skills needed to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
June, 2008
Current Research
My current scientific research involves learning as much about Vesta and Ceres as we can to prepare for the Dawn mission's orbiting of Vesta (2011-2012) and Ceres in 2015. To that end, I have acquired multi-color images of Vesta with Hubble Space Telescope to map its surface and to explore what constraints can be placed on its composition. My colleague, Jian-Yang Li and I have used Hubble Space Telescope to measure the ultraviolet spectrum of Ceres to characterize an absorption band that Li found in his work in 2006. It will be interesting to see if we can pinpoint the material that causes this feature now that there are data with higher spectral resolution than were previously available.
The Deep Impact spacecraft carried an imager with filters designed to detect fluorescent light from comet Tempel 1. I am working on the analysis of these data to see if we can learn anything about the gas emission at close range to the comet.
Current E/PO Actvities
NASA's Discovery missions include programs of education and public outreach designed to share the excitement of NASA's missions with the public and to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers. Together with my EPO team, we host web pages, and we develop educational activities and materials for educators and learners in a variety of settings. Please sign up for Dawn's e-newsletter and/or EPOXI's newsletter if you are interested in following the activities of the programs.