Dr. Stuart J. Weidenschilling, Senior Scientist, conducts theoretical
research on the origin of the solar system, particularly the
aerodynamic interactions of solid bodies and gas in the primordial solar
nebula, and the formation of planetesimals. He also conducts
numerical simulations of the accretion of planetesimals into planets,
using a unique multi-zone computer code, which has recently been
converted to run on parallel processors. Drs. Weidenschilling and Davis
are using this code to investigate the formation and thermal
histories of asteroids, the evolution of comets in the Kuiper belt, the
formation of Jupiter, and other problems of cosmogony. In
collaboration with Dr. Francesco Marzari (Universita di Padova, Italy),
Dr. Weidenschilling is also studying the formation of extra-solar
planets. He has served on the editorial board of Icarus, the international
journal of planetary science, and on several NASA review
panels. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and asteroid
3639 Weidenschilling is named for him.
