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UH astronomer to University of Hawaii astronomer Tom McCord just got his biggest space mission yet: participation in the Dawn Mission to study Ceres and Vesta, the largest asteroids in the solar system.
help map asteroids
Tom McCord will be part of
the 2006 Dawn MissionBy Diana Leone
Except McCord does not like to call them asteroids.
"These are really the two smallest terrestrial planets," McCord said. "Because they are planets, they have evolved some, so we're going to learn about how planets evolve."
McCord will be the only Hawaii participant in the UCLA-led project, which received the go-ahead from the Office of Space Science at NASA yesterday. There will be eight U.S. scientists and three Europeans working on the $300 million mission.
According to current theories, the differing properties of Vesta and Ceres are the result of these minor planets being formed and evolving in different parts of the solar system. By observing both objects with the same set of instruments, Dawn will provide new answers to questions about the formation and evolution of the early solar system.
The Dawn mission will launch in May 2006 with a specially designed spaceship whose main compartment is smaller than a Volkswagen beetle. The craft will study Vesta beginning in July 2010 and Ceres beginning in August 2014.
Unanswered questions include whether Ceres has water and a small atmosphere.
"It's made of primitive material from the formation of the solar system," McCord said. "We don't know much about it. ... This is really first-order exploration."
Sophisticated equipment will map the entire surface of Ceres and Vesta and measure their magnetic fields, gravity and the chemistry of their surfaces, including the presence of chemicals that develop in the presence of water.
"We're not going to land, but we're going to get very close," McCord said.
Since he is a specialist on Ceres, McCord will lead the scientific exploration of it.
McCord has been involved in a number of scientific studies on outer space, including the Galileo, which orbited Jupiter in the 1990s, and the current Cassini project, which will rendezvous with Saturn in 2004. This marks the first time he will be involved in designing an entire project.
McCord holds a doctorate in planetary science and astronomy from the California Institute of Technology and taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 10 years before coming to UH.
His team had been seeking approval for the project for almost 10 years, but he thought the decision would be announced in January.
An early Christmas present?
"Absolutely. This is spectacular. It isn't just science. It's really discovery and exploration. We'll be seeing things for the first time that you've never seen. This is really big stuff to a scientist."
Ka Leo O Hawaii
University of Hawaii
