Astrobiology, formerly known as exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology considers the question of whether extraterrestrial life exists, and if it does, how humans can detect it.
Gerard Peter Kuiper was a Dutch astronomer, planetary scientist, selenographer, author and professor. He is the eponymous namesake of the Kuiper belt.
The Discovery Program is a series of solar system exploration missions funded by the US 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.
Michel Gustave Édouard Mayor is a Swiss astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He formally retired in 2007, but remains active as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-laureate of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Jim Peebles and Didier Queloz, and the winner of the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize and the 2015 Kyoto Prize.
Sara Seager is a Canadian-American astronomer and planetary scientist. She is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is known for her work on extrasolar planets and their atmospheres. She is the author of two textbooks on these topics, and has been recognized for her research by Popular Science, Discover Magazine, Nature, and TIME Magazine. Seager was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 citing her theoretical work on detecting chemical signatures on exoplanet atmospheres and developing low-cost space observatories to observe planetary transits.
Heidi B. Hammel is a planetary astronomer who has extensively studied Neptune and Uranus. She was part of the team imaging Neptune from Voyager 2 in 1989. She led the team using the Hubble Space Telescope to view Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact with Jupiter in 1994. She has used the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Telescope to study Uranus and Neptune, discovering new information about dark spots, planetary storms and Uranus' rings. In 2002, she was selected as an interdisciplinary scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope.
Francis Nimmo is a Professor of Planetary Science at the University of California Santa Cruz.
Andrea Milani Comparetti was an Italian mathematician and astronomer, based at the University of Pisa.
Paolo Farinella was an Italian scientist very active in the planetary field and in the study of asteroids and small bodies of the Solar System.
Reta F. Beebe is an American astronomer, author, and popularizer of astronomy. She is an expert on the planets Jupiter and Saturn, and the author of Jupiter: The Giant Planet. She is a professor emeritus in the Astronomy Department at New Mexico State University and 2010 winner of the NASA Exceptional Public Service medal.
William J. (Bill) Borucki is a space scientist who worked at the NASA Ames Research Center. Upon joining NASA in 1962, Borucki designed the heat shields for Apollo program spacecraft. He later turned his attention to the optical efficiency of lightning strikes in the atmospheres of planets, investigating the propensity that these lightning strikes could create molecules that would later become the precursors for life. Subsequently, Borucki's attention turned to extrasolar planets and their detection, particularly through the transit method. In light of this work, Borucki was named the principal investigator for NASA's Kepler mission, launched on March 6, 2009 and dedicated to a transit-based search for habitable planets. In 2013, Borucki was awarded the United States National Academy of Sciences's Henry Draper Medal for his work with Kepler. In 2015 he received the Shaw Prize in Astronomy.
Patrick Michel is a French planetary scientist, Senior Researcher at CNRS, leader of the team TOP of the Lagrange Laboratory at the Côte d'Azur Observatory in Nice (France).
Emily Stewart Lakdawalla is an American planetary geologist and former Senior Editor of The Planetary Society, contributing as both a science writer and a blogger. She has also worked as a teacher and as an environmental consultant. She has performed research work in geology, Mars topography, and science communication and education. Lakdawalla is a science advocate on various social media platforms, interacting with space professionals and enthusiasts on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. She has appeared on such media outlets as NPR, BBC and BBC America.
Bonnie J. Buratti is an American planetary scientist in the Division of Earth and Space Sciences at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, where she leads the Comets, Asteroids, and Satellites Group. Her research involves the composition and physical properties of planetary surfaces, and volatile transport in the outer solar system.
Shukrayaan-1 is a proposed orbiter to Venus by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to study the surface and atmosphere of Venus.
Sarah T. Stewart-Mukhopadhyay is an American planetary scientist known for studying planet formation, planetary geology, and materials science. She is a professor at the University of California, Davis in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department. She was a professor at Harvard University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences from 2003 to 2014.
Bethany List Ehlmann is a Professor of Planetary Science at California Institute of Technology and a Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Xiangliu, full designation 225088 Gonggong I Xiangliu, is the only known moon of the scattered-disc likely dwarf planet 225088 Gonggong. It was discovered by a team of astronomers led by Csaba Kiss during an analysis of archival Hubble Space Telescope images of Gonggong. The discovery team had suspected that the slow rotation of Gonggong was caused by tidal forces exerted by an orbiting satellite. Xiangliu was first identified in archival Hubble images taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on 18 September 2010. Its discovery was reported and announced by Gábor Marton, Csaba Kiss, and Thomas Müller at the 48th Meeting of the Division for Planetary Sciences on 17 October 2016. The satellite is named after Xiangliu, a nine-headed poisonous snake monster in Chinese mythology that attended the water god Gonggong as his chief minister.
