The Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS), the largest
division of the American Astronomical Society, has announced
that its prestigious Gerard P. Kuiper Prize has been awarded
to Rosetta Interdisciplinary Scientist, Dr Eberhard Grün.
The Kuiper Prize — the highest professional honour awarded
by the DPS — is presented annually to recognise scientists
whose achievements have most advanced our understanding of
the Solar System.
Perhaps more than anyone, Dr Grün may be called the ‘Father
of Rosetta’, since it was he who suggested the name for
ESA’s comet chasing mission back in 1987. Since then, he
has been intimately involved in the design and planning
of the first mission to orbit and soft-land on a comet.
“Our group conducted six years of comet simulations at
DLR, which involved placing a dirty ice ball in a vacuum
chamber and simulating the processes that take place on
a comet’s surface,” said Dr Grün. “We ran quite a number
of experiments and out of this effort came Germany’s
interest in developing a lander. We used drills, dust
collectors and all sorts of other instruments that have
now been placed on the Rosetta Lander.”
“We always believed that a fly-around of a comet was
very useful, but it was particularly important to touch
down on the nucleus and investigate it with a long-term
lander,” he explained.
Today, Dr Grün is an Interdisciplinary Scientist for
the Rosetta mission, and a Co-Investigator, not only
for the Rosetta Lander, but also for the COSIMA,
CONSERT and Radio Science Investigation experiments on
the Orbiter.
He is particularly recognised for his discovery of
interstellar grains passing through the Solar System,
the discovery of Jupiter dust streams in interplanetary
space, and major insights into the science of
micrometeorites in space through the use of a variety
of study techniques.
“Through its wide distribution in the Solar System dust
can tell stories about its parents (comets, asteroids,
satellites, and even interstellar matter) which
otherwise are not easily readable,” he said.
“Dust is a messenger that gives us information on the
nature of distant objects and the processes taking place
in them. Comets are the building blocks from which the
planets formed and dust from comets tells us about
conditions in the early Solar System.”
“By comparing cometary material with interstellar
material that arrives from far away, we will discover
whether comets are pristine or significantly modified
and learn about the composition of the solar nebula
from which the planets formed.”
Grün will receive the Kuiper Prize on Wednesday, 9
October, at the Jefferson Convention Center in
Birmingham, Alabama, the site of this year’s DPS Meeting.
He will then give a lecture entitled ‘Dust Astronomy’.
Grün received his doctorate at the University of
Heidelberg in 1970 and continued there to become
lecturer. He is senior scientist and leader of the
cosmic dust group at the Max-Planck-Institut für
Kernphysik. He is also currently a researcher at the
University of Hawaii. He has been Principal Investigator
for dust experiments aboard Helios 1, Helios 2, Galileo,
Ulysses, and Cassini, provided a dust sensor for Giotto,
and is involved in the Nozomi and Stardust missions.
In 2000, he was elected a Fellow of the American
Geophysical Union and a Foreign Associate of the Royal
Astronomical Society. Minor Planet 1981 EY20 was
designated 4240 Grün in honour of his discoveries about
interplanetary dust.
USEFUL LINKS FOR THIS STORY
* More about Rosetta
IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://sci.esa.int/content/searchimage/searchresult.cfm?aid=13&cid=12&oid=30719
&ooid=30720]
Dr Eberhard Grün is an Interdisciplinary Scientist for the
Rosetta mission, and a Co-Investigator for the Rosetta
Lander and the COSIMA, CONSERT and Radio Science
Investigation experiments on the Orbiter.
