Barbara Cohen | |
|---|---|
 Cohen at Marshall Space Flight Center in 2010 | |
| Alma mater | State University of New York University of Arizona |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Goddard Space Flight Center Marshall Space Flight Center ContentsUniversity of Tennessee |
Barbara Cohen is a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The asteroid 6816 Barbcohen is named after her.
Cohen is from upstate New York. [1] She earned a bachelor's degree in geology from State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1993. [1] She joined Phi Beta Kappa during her studies. [1] She moved to the University of Arizona for her doctoral studies, where she received a University of Arizona Graduate College Fellowship and NASA Graduate Student Research Program Fellowship, and graduated in 2000. [2] Here Cohen looked to understand impact rates on the moon using microbeam analysis and Argon–argon dating of lunar meteorites. She identified that clastic rock in lunar meteorites are different to samples from Apollo, and have ages consistent with Late Heavy Bombardment. [2] [3] [4] While at the University of Arizona, she also led a study into various physical properties of chili. [5]
Cohen joined the University of Tennessee as a postdoctoral researcher, where she worked on analysis of lunar samples such as Dhofar 025 and Dhofar 026 [6] with Larry Taylor. [7] She moved to the University of Hawaii, where she worked with Klaus Keil on geochronology of Luna 20 samples. [2] In 2003 she joined University of New Mexico as an assistant professor. [1] [8]
In 2007 Cohen joined Marshall Space Flight Center to support the planning for human exploration of the Moon for the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program. [2] [9] She led the MSFC planetary science team [10] and was the lead US project scientist for the International Lunar Network, a proposed mission to understand the Moon's composition. [11] She is the Principal Investigator of the Marshall Space Flight Center (now Mid-Atlantic) Noble Gas Research Laboratory (MNGRL), using noble-gas isotopes to understand the temperature-time histories of rocks and meteorites. [12] [13] The MNGRL lab is being used to analyze Apollo samples that have been opened for the first time in 50 years. [14] [15] Conscious that the MNGRL was so large, she developed a rover-sized Potassium-argon laser experiment (KArLE). [16] [17]
Cohen is the principal investigator for the Lunar Flashlight mission, a CubeSat mission aboard the first flight of the Space Launch System that will search for water ice on the Moon. [18] [19] [20] [21] She is the principal investigator for PITMS, [22] a mass spectrometer manifested on the first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission, [23] and a co-Investigator on Heimdall and SAMPLR, instruments that will fly on a subsequent CLPS mission. [24]
Cohen was Associate Principal Investigator of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, where she was identifying the nature and origins of Martian impact material. [25] She is a member of the science team for the Curiosity rover and is a Returned Sample Scientist for the Perseverance rover mission.
She has volunteered for several missions to search for Antarctic meteorites (ANSMET). [26] Cohen contributed to "The Scientific Context for Exploration of the Moon", a 2008 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report. [27] In 2010 Cohen featured in the Faces of Marshall campaign. [28] She was part of group who created the 2013 Planetary Science Decadal Survey, which provided a roadmap for planetary science missions and priorities. [29] In 2016 she took part in a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" (AMA). [30] In 2017 Cohen joined Goddard Space Flight Center. [1]
Cohen is a member of the American Geophysical Union and has been part of several committees. [31] She is a member of The Planetary Society. [32] Cohen won the 2018 Angioletta Coradini Mid-Career Award from NASA's Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). [33] She is a 2018 Fellow of the Meteoritical Society. [34]
The Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) is a battery-powered four-wheeled rover used on the Moon in the last three missions of the American Apollo program during 1971 and 1972. It is popularly called the Moon buggy, a play on the term "dune buggy".
Phobos is the innermost and larger of the two natural satellites of Mars, the other being Deimos. The two moons were discovered in 1877 by American astronomer Asaph Hall. It is named after Phobos, the Greek god of fear and panic, who is the son of Ares (Mars) and twin brother of Deimos.
A lunar meteorite is a meteorite that is known to have originated on the Moon. A meteorite hitting the Moon is normally classified as a transient lunar phenomenon.
The Discovery Program is a series of Solar System exploration missions funded by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) through its Planetary Missions Program Office. The cost of each mission is capped at a lower level than missions from NASA's New Frontiers or Flagship Programs. As a result, Discovery missions tend to be more focused on a specific scientific goal rather than serving a general purpose.
Moon rock or lunar rock is rock originating from Earth's Moon. This includes lunar material collected during the course of human exploration of the Moon, and rock that has been ejected naturally from the Moon's surface and landed on Earth as meteorites.
The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) is a scientific research institute dedicated to study of the solar system, its formation, evolution, and current state. The Institute is part of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) and is supported by the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Located at 3600 Bay Area Boulevard in Houston, Texas, the LPI is an intellectual leader in lunar and planetary science. The Institute serves as a scientific forum attracting world-class visiting scientists, postdoctoral fellows, students, and resident experts; supports and serves the research community through newsletters, meetings, and other activities; collects and disseminates planetary data while facilitating the community's access to NASA astromaterials samples and facilities; engages and excites the public about space science; and invests in the development of future generations of scientists. The LPI sponsors and organizes several workshops and conferences throughout the year, including the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) held in March in the Houston area.
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Pascal Lee is co-founder and chairman of the Mars Institute, a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute, and the Principal Investigator of the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. He holds an ME in geology and geophysics from the University of Paris, and a PhD in astronomy and space sciences from Cornell University.
A Mars sample-return (MSR) mission is a proposed mission to collect rock and dust samples on Mars and return them to Earth. Such a mission would allow more extensive analysis than that allowed by onboard sensors.
NASA's Desert Research and Technology Studies is a group of teams which perform an annual series of field trials seeking to demonstrate and test candidate technologies and systems for human exploration of the surface of the Moon, Mars, or other rocky bodies.
David Stewart McKay was chief scientist for astrobiology at the Johnson Space Center. During the Apollo program, McKay provided geology training to the first men to walk on the Moon in the late 1960s. McKay was the first author of a scientific paper postulating past life on Mars on the basis of evidence in Martian meteorite ALH 84001, which had been found in Antarctica. This paper has become one of the most heavily cited papers in planetary science. The NASA Astrobiology Institute was founded partially as a result of community interest in this paper and related topics. He was a native of Titusville, Pennsylvania.
Interplanetary contamination refers to biological contamination of a planetary body by a space probe or spacecraft, either deliberate or unintentional.
The Planetary Science Decadal Survey is a serial publication of the United States National Research Council produced for NASA and other United States Government Agencies such as the National Science Foundation. The documents identify key questions facing planetary science and outlines recommendations for space and ground-based exploration ten years into the future. Missions to gather data to answer these big questions are described and prioritized, where appropriate. Similar decadal surveys cover astronomy and astrophysics, earth science, and heliophysics.
Lunar Flashlight was a low-cost CubeSat lunar orbiter mission to explore, locate, and estimate size and composition of water ice deposits on the Moon for future exploitation by robots or humans.
Luna 27 is a planned lunar lander mission by the Roscosmos with collaboration by the European Space Agency (ESA) to send a lander to the South Pole–Aitken basin, an area on the far side of the Moon. Its objective will be to detect and characterise lunar polar volatiles. The mission is a continuation of the Luna-Glob programme.
The Planetary Missions Program Office is a division of NASA headquartered at the Marshall Space Flight Center, formed by the agency's Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Succeeding the Discovery and New Frontiers Program Office, it was established in 2014 to manage the Discovery and New Frontiers programs of low and medium-cost missions by third-party institutions, and the Solar System Exploration program of NASA-led missions that focus on prioritized planetary science objectives. The Discovery and New Frontiers programs were established in 1992 and 2001 respectively, and have launched fourteen primary missions together, along with two missions launched under the administration of the Planetary Missions Program Office. The Solar System Exploration Program was established alongside the office, with three missions planned for launch under the new program.
VIPER is a lunar rover developed by NASA, and currently planned to be delivered to the surface of the Moon in November 2024. The rover will be tasked with prospecting for lunar resources in permanently shadowed areas in the lunar south pole region, especially by mapping the distribution and concentration of water ice. The mission builds on a previous NASA rover concept called Resource Prospector, which was cancelled in 2018.
Katherine Helen Joy is a Professor in Earth Sciences at the University of Manchester. Joy has studied lunar samples from the Apollo program as part of her research on meteorites and lunar science.
R. Aileen Yingst is an American geologist and senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute as well as an Investigator on the Perseverance rover's SHERLOC instrument for NASA. She has contributed to many projects including Mars Science Library, Mars Rover Exploration, and Mars 2020, focusing mainly on macro/microtexture of surfaces on Mars.
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