Prof. Scott S. Sheppard, an American astronomer working at The Carnegie Institution for Science of Washington, and Prof. Chad Trujillo, an American scientist working at Northern Arizona University, have been awarded jointly the 2019 Paolo Farinella Prize for their outstanding collaborative work for the observational characterisation of the Kuiper belt and the Neptune-Trojan population. The award ceremony was hosted today at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva, Switzerland. The ceremony included two lectures by the winners on “Completing the Inventory of the Solar System.”
The annual prize was established in 2010 to honour the memory of the Italian scientist Paolo Farinella (1953-2000) and, each year, it acknowledges an outstanding researcher not older than 47 years (the age of Farinella when he passed away) who has achieved important results in one of Farinella’s fields of work. Each year the Prize focuses on a different research area and in 2019, the ninth edition was devoted to the trans-Neptunian objects, including, among other objects, the Kuiper belt the edge of the solar system.
Prof. Sheppard and Prof. Trujillo have discovered a significant number of detached and distant trans-Neptunian objects, unveiling the structure of the distant Kuiper belt and pointing out, for the first time, the directionally-dependent distribution of their orbits. Their work has opened up new hypotheses on the formation and evolution of the solar system, including that there might be a very distant undiscovered giant planet in our solar system.
Prof. Sheppard received his BA in Physics at Oberlin College, Ohio and his PhD in astronomy at the University of Hawaii. He is currently a Faculty Member at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington.
Prof. Trujillo received his BA in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his PhD in astronomy at the University of Hawaii. He currently holds the position of Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Northern Arizona University.
Before receiving the Prize, Prof. Sheppard commented: “I’m very honoured to be awarded the Paolo Farinella Prize in planetary research. Paolo was an inspiration and it is great his memory lives on with this prize.”
Prof. Trujillo added: “I know that our research is well-known, but there are so many excellent scientists studying the outer solar system that I was astonished and humbled that the committee chose us to receive this prestigious award.”
Media Contacts:
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EPSC Press Officer
+44 7756 034243
anita.heward@europlanet-eu.org
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-soci
Livia Giacomini
EPSC Press Officer
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-soci
Adriana Postiglione
EPSC Press Officer
epsc-dps-press@europlanet-soci
Shantanu Naidu
DPS Press Officer
dpspress@aas.org
During the meeting, the EPSC-DPS Press Office can be contacted on +41 22 791 9617.
Science Contacts:
Prof. Scott Sheppard
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism
The Carnegie Institution for Science
Washington, DC
ssheppard@carnegiescience.edu
Prof. Chad Trujillo
Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, Arizona
chad.trujillo@nau.edu
Images:
https://www.europlanet-society
Prof. Scott Sheppard, giving the Farinella Prize Lecture 2019. Credit: S. Sheppard / Europlanet / G. Mantovani
https://www.europlanet-society
Prof. Chad Trujillo, giving the Farinella Prize Lecture 2019. Credit: C. Trujillo / Europlanet / G. Mantovani
https://www.europlanet-society
Prof. Scott Sheppard, winner of the Farinella Prize 2019. Credit: S. Sheppard
https://www.europlanet-society
Prof. Chad Trujillo, winner of the Farinella Prize 2019. Credit: C. Trujillo
About the Paolo Farinella Prize:
The Paolo Farinella Prize (http://www.europlanet-eu.org/
EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019:
The 2019 Joint Meeting (https://www.epsc-dps2019.eu) of the European
Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) of the Europlanet Society and the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) will take place at the Centre International de Conférences de Genève (CICG), Geneva, Switzerland, from Sunday 15 to Friday 20 September 2019. More than 1950 abstracts have been submitted and over 1,500 planetary scientists from Europe, the US and around the world are expected to attend the meeting, making it one of the largest gatherings of planetary scientists held in Europe to date. The EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 will be the third time that EPSC and the DPS Annual Meeting have been held together.
Follow: @europlanetmedia #EPSCDPS2019
The Europlanet Society:
The Europlanet Society, launched in September 2018, is an organization for individual and corporate members to promote the advancement of planetary science and related fields in Europe. The Society provides Europe’s planetary science community with a platform to exchange ideas and personnel, share research tools, data and facilities, define key science goals for the future, and engage stakeholders, policy makers and European citizens with planetary science. The Europlanet Society is the parent organisation of the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC). Europlanet Society website: https://www.europlanet-society
DPS:
The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS, https://dps.aas.org), founded in 1968, is the largest special-interest Division of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Members of the DPS study the bodies of our own solar system, from planets and moons to comets and asteroids, and all other solar-system objects and processes. With the discovery that planets exist around other stars, the DPS has expanded its scope to include the study of extrasolar planetary systems as well. The AAS (https://aas.org), established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. The membership (approx. 7,500) also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects now comprising contemporary astronomy. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe, which it achieves through publishing, meeting organization, education and outreach, and training and professional development.