What are the responsibilities and job description for the Weather and winds in outer planet atmospheres position at Zintellect?
About the NASA Postdoctoral Program
The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA’s missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology.
Description:
The atmospheres of the outer planets and some of their moons (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Titan, Triton) have remarkable differences and similarities to those of the inner planets. The giant planets and ice giants (J, S, U, N) are worlds with no surface, blisteringly fast winds, and occasional dramatic storms, as well as polar cyclones and myriad clouds decks of different hues. Their atmospheres are dominated by hydrogen, but with significant mixtures of other hydrogenated ices such as methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and other gases that condense at different levels. Titan and Triton on the other hand have nitrogen-dominated atmospheres like the Earth, with solid surfaces that form substrates for condensation; lakes, seas and rivers; and re-evaporation to form clouds and rain.
Much of our knowledge of these worlds has come from visits by spacecraft missions such as Voyager 1&2, Galileo, Cassini-Huygens and more recently Juno; while future visitors in the next decade will include Europa Clipper, JUICE and Dragonfly. These have provided a powerful combination of global remote sensing coverage (imaging, spectroscopy) along with some in situ data (Galileo probe, Huygens lander) that together have revealed the climates of these planets in some detail. Further imaging from ground and space-based telescopes, and Doppler wind mapping from interferometric arrays, has provided additional temporal data on winds and weather with which to constrain climate simulations.
The gradual accumulation of data, along with new observations constantly being added from JWST, and soon from thirty-meter class ground-based observatories has generated a vast and deep dataset on the climates of the outer planets which has yet to be fully explored. In this NPP solicitation, various investigations of outer planet climates are possible: from projects focusing mainly at acquiring and/or reducing observational data, to projects focused on data modeling through radiative transfer, laboratory work on ices, and modeling of global or local climates, atmospheric chemistry and cloud microphysics.
Field of Science: Planetary Science
Advisors:
Applications with citizens from Designated Countries will not be accepted at this time, unless they are Legal Permanent Residents of the United States. A complete list of Designated Countries can be found at: https://www.nasa.gov/oiir/export-control.
Eligibility is currently open to:
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U.S. Citizens;
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U.S. Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR);
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Foreign Nationals eligible for an Exchange Visitor J-1 visa status; and,
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Applicants for LPR, asylees, or refugees in the U.S. at the time of application with 1) a valid EAD card and 2) I-485 or I-589 forms in pending status
Questions about this opportunity? Please email npp@orau.org
