Jeff Morgenthaler has joined the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), a private, non-profit corporation, with headquarters in Tucson, Arizona.
He will be based in Fort Kent, Maine.
Morgenthaler studies space plasmas, the interstellar medium, the near-space environments of planets, and comets. He specializes in developing instruments for ground-based telescopes, such as novel spectrometers and imaging systems. He also creates data analysis software for these instruments.
Morgenthaler’s first project at PSI uses the Galaxy Evolutionary Explorer (GALEX) space telescope to study Comet 8P/Tuttle – a short-period Halley-family comet and primordial leftover from the solar system’s formation billions of years ago.
Comets are of interest because they may have been important sources of water that formed the Earth’s oceans and organic material, contributing to the rise of life.
The California Institute of Technology operates GALEX for NASA.
Morgenthaler also is studying a plasma ring that surrounds Jupiter in the orbit of Io, one of its moons. Volcanoes create a thin atmosphere on Io, which is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. This ionized atmosphere is swept away by Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field to form a glowing ring, which is called the “Io plasma torus.” A plasma is an ionized gas, and an ion is an atom or molecule that carries an electrostatic charge because it has gained or lost one or more electrons.
The Io plasma torus is the closest astrophysical nebula (cloud of gas or dust) to the Earth. By studying it in detail, using measurements from spacecraft, scientists can test their models of similar systems, such as disks around newly forming stars, binary star systems and super-massive black holes in the centers of galaxies. Morgenthaler’s work on the Io plasma torus is supported by NASA’s Planetary Astronomy Program.
Morgenthaler is also studying X-rays coming from outer space. A portion of these X-rays is generated by a charge-exchange reaction between highly charged ions in our solar wind and neutral hydrogen atoms sifting into our solar system from interstellar space. Scientists think another portion of the X-rays may come from hot plasma generated by supernova explosions within a few hundred parsecs of our solar system (the “local bubble”). Morgenthaler’s work, an extension of his Ph.D. thesis studies, will help separate what portion of the X-rays is generated by each mechanism.
Morgenthaler began observing solar-system objects at the McMath-Pierce solar telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Ariz. in 1997 and has spent at least two weeks each year observing on the mountain since then.
He worked as a research scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle until moving to Maine earlier this year.
Morgenthaler earned his undergraduate degree in physics from MIT in 1990, and his Master’s (1994) and Ph.D. (1998) degrees in physics from the University of Wisconsin.