ICGL PhD candidates Soumya Ray and Zack Torrano recently produced a new segment for ASU's Ask an Earth and Space Scientist website! Their piece, Meteorites: Space Rocks, covers meteorite origins, types, identification, and much more – all tailored for at-home learning. Ask an Earth and Space Scientist is an educational portal for students, teachers, parents, […]
Alumna Dr. Emilie Dunham awarded 51 Pegasi b Fellowship in planetary astronomy
The Heising-Simons Foundation has announced that ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration and Center for Meteorite Studies alumna Dr. Emilie Dunham has been selected for a 51 Pegasi b Fellowship in planetary astronomy. Established in 2017 and named for the first exoplanet discovered orbiting a Sun-like star, the 51 Pegasi b Fellowship provides exceptional […]
New paper: Si-Mg isotopes in enstatite chondrites and accretion of reduced planetary bodies
ASU Now recently published a story featuring Associate Research Scientist Dr. Vinai Rai’s research on enstatite chondrites and what they can tell us about what Earth and other terrestrial planets are made of. This research was published in Nature Scientific Reports with co-author Jinia Skidar. Read the full story, on ASU Now! Read the full […]
Graduate Student Spotlight: Zachary Torrano
Zachary Torrano received his B.S. in Environmental Geosciences from the University of Notre Dame in 2015, and is currently enrolled in the final year of his Ph.D. at ASU, advised by Prof. Meenakshi Wadhwa. As an undergraduate, Zack conducted nuclear forensics research in the University of Notre Dame’s High Temperature Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory from 2013–2015, […]
Alumna Emilie Dunham joins Antarctic Search for Meteorites
Having successfully defended her dissertation in September, Center alumna Dr. Emilie Dunham is preparing to collect meteorites from Antarctica this week! As a member of the US-led Antarctic Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET), she'll be collecting meteorites from stranding surfaces along the Transantarctic Mountains. To date, ANSMET has recovered over 22,000 meteorites – these meteorites […]
New paper: Hypervelocity impacts in iron meteorites
PhD Candidate Soumya Ray is a co-author on a new research paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. The paper, Hypervelocity impact experiments in iron-nickel ingots and iron meteorites: Implications for the NASA Psyche mission, details the results of a series of high-velocity impact experiments performed on iron meteorites and cast metal ingots […]
Meenakshi Wadhwa elected AGU Fellow
In recognition of her visionary leadership and scientific excellence, Meenakshi Wadhwa was recently elected to the 2019 class of the American Geophysical Union Fellows. According to the official announcement in EOS, AGU Fellows are recognized for their scientific eminence in the Earth and space sciences. Their breadth of interests and the scope of their contributions […]
Congratulations, Dr. Emilie Dunham!
Congratulations to Dr. Emilie Dunham, who successfully defended her doctoral thesis September 13th! To Be or not to B: Meteoritic Implications for the Galactic Environment of Solar System Formation Short-lived radionuclides (SLRs) once present in the solar nebula can be used to probe the Solar System’s galactic formation environment. Isotopic analyses reveal that the first […]
New titanium isotope paper
In a new paper published in Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, PhD Candidate Zack Torrano and co-authors investigate whether the isotope compositions of previously analyzed calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) are representative of CAIs from other chondrites and chondrite groups and, by extension, the broader CAI-forming region in the solar nebula. CAIs are the oldest dated solids formed […]
Congratulations, Dr. Daniel Dunlap!
Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Dunlap, who successfully defended his doctoral thesis August 28! Dr. Dunlap will next undertake a post-doctoral research position at NASA Johnson Space Center. Chronology of Planetesimal Differentiation Based on the Timing of Achondrite Formation in the Early Solar System The early Solar System was a dynamic period of time during which […]
