Physics professor Paul Cassak will use money from the National Science Foundation to continue his research into space’s atmosphere.
Cassak is studying magnetic reconnection. It is a critical process in physics, in which magnetic energy in space is converted into other forms of energy.
Cassak says in space, magnetic fields act like rubber bands.
“If you pull on them, they feel tension and they want to spring back and release their energy,” he said.
“So what we’re doing is trying to develop more realistic models of how reconnection works in these settings so we can get a better understanding.”
The sun releases some material that can be harmful to the earth’s atmosphere and affect things like satellite and cell phone reception and even airplanes in flight.
The earth’s magnetic field deflects this material. Cassak says the goal of his research is to learn more about this process and be better prepared when the sun releases these materials.
The research will also study how fusion creates more sustainable energy.
The same magnetic fields hold hot gases that create energy when the atoms inside them come in contact with one another.
Cassak says this energy can be used to power electrical grids on Earth.
“I think the process is really interesting,” he said.
“What’s really great about it is that it really lets you learn quite a lot about very different aspects of the universe, just by studying supposedly one simple process.”
Cassak’s project received $360,000 to do research and produce presentations aimed at recruiting new students.
The presentations will be shown at the WVU’s planetarium.
“I’m going to be making short movies, sort of like a trailer, like you would see at a movie theater,” he said.
“It will be a five minute show talking about not just my own work, but the other work going on in the department that has to do with space weather.”
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Another Physics professor, Duncan Lorimer, is also getting more than $250,000 in National Science Foundation money for his project.
Lorimer is using the Green Bank Telescope to study pulsars. Pulsars are objects in space formed when huge stars explode.
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They are composed of neutrons and rotate very rapidly, and can be detected through radio waves.
Lorimer is preparing a statistical analysis of how many pulsars exist in the Milky Way galaxy.
Lorimer hopes the research will be able to add newer, more practical methods of astronomy research at WVU.