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Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > Faculty Experts at Washington University in St. Louis >
Professor of Planetary Geochemisrty and Cosmochemistry
Expertise: chemical processes in the early solar system, planeary surfaces, planetary atmospheres, Venus, Jovian planets, solar nebula, Magellan, Galileo Venus Flyby, Pioneer Venus, Vega spacecraft, Venera spacecraft, chemical thermodynamic models, chemical kinetic models, primitive meteorites, gas-grain reactions, biogeochemistry, earth systems science, behavioral studies, ecological studies, functinal studies, morpholoical studies, Anolis lizards, behaviroal ecology, collared lizard
Bio: Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences, specializes in Venus and the early solar system. Fegley and Senior Research Scientist Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., and technical staff, graduate students, and undergraduates form the Planetary Chemistry Laboratory in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, are involved in multiple research areas. Their research activities can be divided into involvement with spacecraft missions, experimental studies of important chemical reactions in the solar nebula, in planetary atmospheres, and between planetary atmospheres and surfaces, and theoretical modeling of chemical processes in circumstellar envelopes, the atmospheres of brown dwarfs and extrasolar planets, the early solar system, on planetary surfaces, and in planetary atmospheres.
WUSTL Contact Information:
| Work: | (314) 935-4852 |
| Fax: | (314) 935-7361 |
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| News Stories & Tip Sheets: |
Showing Stories 1 through 5 of 6.
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Far out, man
Computer models suggest planetary and extrasolar planet atmopsheres
June 14,
2007 --
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| What's beyond the solar system? Astronomers say there are planets similar to ours "out there". |
The world is abuzz with the discovery of an extrasolar, Earth-like planet around the star Gliese 581 that is relatively close to our Earth at 20 light years away in the constellation Libra. Bruce Fegley, Jr., Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has worked on computer models that can provide hints to what comprises the atmosphere of such planets and better-known celestial bodies in our own solar system. New computer models, from both Earth-based spectroscopy and space mission data, are providing space scientists compelling evidence for a better understanding of planetary atmospheric chemistry.
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Many Moons, missions, that is
Washington University collaborates with Shandong University in upcoming Chinese Moon mission
Sept. 7,
2006 --
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| Photo courtesy NASA |
Amid a bevy of international space exploration missions to the Moon, the Washington University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences and ShanDong University at WeiHai (SDU at WH) in Mainland China have agreed to cooperate on scientific research and joint training of students in the two institutions. The agreement comes less than a year away from the planned launch of Chang'E-1, the Chinese lunar probe project, in April, 2007. The goals of China's Chang'E-1 project are first to place a satellite into orbit around the Moon in 2007; then to land an unmanned vehicle on the Moon by 2010; and to collect samples of lunar soil with an unmanned vehicle by 2020. The spacecraft carries five instruments to image and measure different features of the Moon. Within two years, three additional missions from the United States, India and Japan will generate a furious flurry of data that will keep space scientists enthralled for the better part of the next decade. The Japanese Selene mission is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2007, the Indian Chandrayaan-1 in late 2007 or early 2008, and the United States' Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter for October 2008. More...
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It's a gas, gas, gas
Researchers provide clues to detect new earth-like planets
Sept. 7,
2005 --
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| WUSTL researchers provide a field guide to exoplanets. |
Astronomers looking for earth-like planets in other solar systems — exoplanets — now have a new field guide thanks to earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis. Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Laura Schaefer, laboratory assistant, have used thermochemical equilibrium calculations to model the chemistry of silicate vapor and steam-rich atmospheres formed when earth-like planets are undergoing accretion. During the accretion process, with surface temperatures of several thousands degrees Kelvin (K), a magma ocean forms and vaporizes.
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Origins of life
Calculations reinvigorate old theory on life's origins
Sept. 7,
2005 --
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| David Kilper/WUSTL Photo |
| Fegley and Schaefer examine a meteorite. |
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Using primitive meteorites called chondrites as their models, earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have performed outgassing calculations and shown that the early Earth's atmosphere was a reducing one, chock full of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor. In making this discovery Bruce Fegley, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Laura Schaefer, laboratory assistant, reinvigorate one of the most famous and controversial theories on the origins of life, the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment, which yielded organic compounds necessary to evolve organisms.
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Introducing the tar line
Jupiter's core not a big snowball
Dec. 23,
2004 --
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| Jupiter: a core of tar. |
After eleven months of politics, now it's time for some real "core values" - not those of the candidates but those of the great gas giant planet, Jupiter. Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis research associate professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, studying data from the Galileo probe of Jupiter, proposes a new mechanism by which the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago.
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Mineral may unlock secrets of Venus's ancient oceans
NewScientist.com (UK)
Oct. 11,
2007 -- Did ancient oceans on Venus last long enough for potential life to have emerged? The answer could be locked inside a hardy mineral called tremolite, which future robotic missions to our neighbouring planet could find and study.
Experiments by Natasha Johnson of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and WUSTL earth and planetary sciences professor Bruce Fegley Jr. have previously shown that tremolite, which forms in the presence of water, is tough enough that it could have survived on Venus's surface to the present.
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New method developed to find exoplanets
United Press International, RedNova.com (TX)
and 3 others
Sept. 8,
2005 -- Astronomers looking for earth-like planets in other solar systems — exoplanets — now have a new field guide thanks to WUSTL earth and planetary scientists Bruce Fegley and Laura Schaefer.
The research was presented during this week's annual meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in Cambridge, England.
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Additional Background: Fegley is principal investigator of several grants from the NASA Origins, Planetary Atmospheres, and Planetary Instrument Definition and Development Programs. He was also principal investigator of a NATO Collaborative Research Grant and is the author of over 100 refereed publications. Lodders is the author (with Fegley) of one book, The Planetary Scientist's Companion, which was published by Oxford University Press in 1998, and of over 50 refereed publications. She is currently principal investigator of a NSF grant for chemical models of brown dwarfs and was also principal investigator of a NATO Collaborative Research Grant.
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