Assistant professor of astronomy Seth Redfield never owned a telescope when he was young.
“I’d always been interested and excited by astronomy, math, and physics,” Redfield said. “When I was a kid I would visit our small town observatory in Lincoln, Nebraska, but I never had my own telescope.”
Now, having recently been awarded three coveted NASA research grants, Redfield has the most up-to date telescopes at his disposal.
Redfield, who joined the University faculty this year, received a grant of over $138,000 from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) for his research, “A Snapshot Survey of the Local Interstellar Medium: New NUV Observations of Stars with Archived FUV Observations,” and almost $51,000 for his research, “Probing the Atomic and Molecular Inventory of the Beta-Pic Analog the young, Edge-On Debris Disk of HD32297.” In addition, Redfield has been allotted over $316,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for his work “Comparative Exoplanetology: Ground-Based Observations of the Atmospheres of Transiting Exoplanets.”
“One of the things I especially enjoy about doing new observations is the sense of discovery that I feel,” Redfield said. “I look at an object and make a measurement that potentially no one else has made which is very exciting.”
As an undergraduate at Tufts University, Redfield focused his studies on astronomy and physics. He continued to concentrate in this field as a Ph.D. student at University of Colorado Boulder, where he gained his first experiences in teaching. Redfield realized that he missed his role as an educator while working next as a Post Doc at the University of Texas.
“Research is very exciting, it leads to this sense of discovery, but interacting with real people on a day to day basis and having an impact on someone’s education is something that I’ve really enjoyed,” Redfield said.
These grants will provide Redfield with the resources to expand his research while continuing to teach. The first STScI grant allows Redfield to investigate the interstellar medium, which consists of gas and dust particles caught between stars. Using highly detailed observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, Redfield will use measured changes in ultraviolet light rays to determine the composition and density of the dust and particles of the interstellar medium through which the light passes.
Redfield will employ this same technique with the second STScI grant. He plans to analyze observations from the Hubble Space Telescope to measure the particles and debris surrounding two stars in the Pisces constellation that are in the last stage of star and plant formation. Redfield hopes that these measurements will provide astronomers with a more concrete understanding of the earth’s history, which underwent these same stages of formation during a phase called the late heavy bombardment.
Redfield is particularly excited about the last grant, from NSF, with which he will further study the composition, structure, atmosphere and properties of exoplanets by analyzing measured changes in ultraviolet light rays. According to Redfield, exoplanets, a new area of research in the astrophysics field, are planets that orbit around other stars and.
“Fifteen years ago we didn’t know about any other planets, outside our own solar system,” Redfield said. “Now we know of over three hundred other planets around other stars. In our solar system you can see transits of Mercury and Venus pass in front of the sun.”
Though his work may seem quite technical, Redfield finds it most rewarding because of the larger implications of his findings.
“What I enjoy most about astronomy is that we are trying to put our own existence on earth in some sort of greater astronomical context,” he said.
His work with the Hubble Space Telescope is especially pertinent as it is unclear how much longer it will remain in orbit. Redfield explained that a servicing mission scheduled for next month plans to conduct a periodic service update. However, the aging telescope, which was launched in 1990, may have parts that have simply outlived their time in space.
“Hopefully we’ve got a decade more of Hubble time,” he said.
Regardless of the outcome of the mission, Redfield only has three years to complete his work and publish his results. Redfield must take care to employ his observation times wisely, as there is steep competition among astronomers to work with the Hubble Space Telescope. His grants are especially important given the financial times and the high costs of the technologies that his research requires; STScI received 958 proposals and approved only two hundred and twenty eight.
While serious about his work, Redfield still finds that he can enjoy non-scientific portrayals of the extraterrestrial world, as long as they do not sacrifice too much of the science.
“I’m a big fan of science fiction and I think that many astrophysicist are too,” said Redfield.