view . fall 2009
5
RESEARCH
Opposite page: Dr. Charles Malone is based at NASA.
The stars
must have been in perfect
alignment for Charles Malone on
July 20, 1976.
That’s the day when Viking 1
became the first unmanned
spacecraft to make a completely
successful landing on Mars. It is the
same day that Malone came into the
world, only to grow up and eventually be employed by the agency
responsible for that very mission.
These days, Malone, who was born and raised in Windsor and
graduated from UWindsor in 2003 with a PhD in physics, spends
his time working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena,
California. There, he contributes to the analysis of data transmitted
back over millions of miles from spacecraft that have travelled
to Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons, trying to understand what he
refers to as the “space weather” in the atmospheres surrounding
those planets.
A key component of his work involves trying to comprehend
how energy is transmitted in those atmospheres. He says part
of NASA’s research goals are to understand the sun’s effects on
the solar system, as well as the fundamental physical processes
of outer planetary atmospheres, to predict the extreme and
dynamic conditions in space and to pave the way for future
space explorations.
Io, for instance, is one of Jupiter’s 63 moons and it spews
sulphuric gases from active volcanoes into the atmosphere,
giving off energy and generating sulphuric acid on Europa, a
neighbouring moon. Electrons from Jupiter’s plasma torus, the
cloud of ionized gas that encircles the planet, strike sulphur and
oxygen atoms and excite them, causing them to emit energy in
the form of light.
Back in Malone’s lab, data and models are used to interpret
observations from spacecraft such as the Voyager, Hubble Space
Telescope, as well as the Galileo and Cassini missions. He says he
is interested in knowing how much energy is being transmitted, and
also how much energy is being left in the atmospheres.
“It’s a multi-faceted approach to
understanding how the solar system
works,” says Malone. He adds:
“How energy is being dumped in the
atmosphere affects a lot of things.
Satellites can be knocked out of
commission and power outages can
result. Even though these things seem out
of reach for the average lay person, they can have profound effects on
people, so it definitely relates to our own world -- the Northern Lights
are a fantastic visual example of these atmospheric interactions.”
Malone said it was while he was working as an undergraduate
with his mentor Dr. Bill McConkey, physics professor emeritus
at UWindsor, when it occurred to him that finding employment
someday with the space agency was not a far-fetched idea.
“He was a fantastic influence,” he says of McConkey. “He
was a great role model. He has a certain way about him that just
lends itself to success. He always had a great ability to put things
into perspective.”
Malone, whose wife Heather (Seanor) earned an MA in English
from UWindsor in 2001, still collaborates with McConkey, a world-
renowned physicist who has conducted experiments on a variety of
gases that make up the atmosphere of our galaxy’s largest planet
and moons.
McConkey and his students – some, who like Malone, have gone
on to work for NASA – inject various gases that include sulphur into
a complex experimental vacuum system, hit them with an electron
beam and examine the light that’s emitted by splitting it up into its
various wavelengths.
“We’re just trying to help them to try to make sense of what they
see,” says the soft-spoken McConkey, who was named to the Order of
Ontario in 2008 and is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
The professor emeritus says his work is just a small portion of a
broader attempt to advance the understanding of our universe, but
not an insignificant one.
“Our contribution is a tiny component of the larger picture, but
every little bit counts,” he says.
n
v
FINDING
IN THE STARS
answers
BY STEPHEN FIELDS
“HOW ENERGY IS BEING DUMPED IN THE
ATMOSPHERE AFFECTS A LOT OF THINGS.
SATELLITES CAN BE KNOCKED OUT OF
COMMISSION AND POWER OUTAGES CAN
RESULT. THEY CAN HAVE PROFOUND
EFFECTS ON PEOPLE.”
Charles Malone PhD ’03
