Dr. Walter Conducts Research at NASA Goddard

Dr. Donald Walter of the SCSU Physics Area is spending nine weeks during the summer of 2007 working with NASA scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Walter has received a Summer Sabbatical Award from the NASA Astrobiology Institute under the Minority Institute Research Support program.

Mike DiSanti (left) and Mike Mumma (right) discuss the spectrum of Comet WM1 with Don Walter (center).

The announcement of his award on the NAI website can be found here.

Walter will work with NASA astronomers Mike Mumma and Mike DiSanti at the Goddard Center for Astrobiology to better understand comets through the use of CCD images and spectra taken at optical wavelengths.

The title and abstract of his summer work are:

"Developing A Sustainable Cometary Research Program in Astrobiology
at South Carolina State University"

We propose to develop a sustainable program of optical imaging and spectroscopy of comets at South Carolina State University (SCSU) that would be a part of the research conducted at the Goddard Center for Astrobiology (GCA) and contribute to the goals of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) and the field of Astrobiology. We will expand on the existing research experience in nebular astrophysics of Dr. Donald Walter at SCSU to now include ground and space-based studies of comets. Participation by Walter in the NAI Minority Institution Research Support (MIRS) Sabbatical program will allow GCA and SCSU to build a collaboration that will address a range of research questions relevant to Astrobiology.

 

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