Oct 11
PHAS Alum David Gerdes '86 talk
Fri, October 11, 2024
• 3:30pm
- 4:30pm (1h) • Anderson 036
What's Beyond Neptune? Search and Discovery in the Kuiper Belt and Beyond
David Gerdes '86
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and Chair, Department of Physics; Professor of Astronomy, University of Michigan
Abstract: The solar system beyond Neptune is home to thousands of small, icy worlds that represent a preserved remnant of our solar system's formation and early evolution. Because they are so distant and faint, they are also extremely difficult to detect: while the first trans-Neptunian object, Pluto, was discovered in 1930, the second was not discovered until 1992. Using large telescopes on the ground and in space, and aided by the tools of modern data science, my research group has discovered hundreds of new TNOs. Many of them are too faint to be seen in individual images, but emerge when the images are combined in a way that matches the object's unique rate of motion. I will describe this work and what we have learned from it, as well as the role that Carleton students played in helping me initiate this line of research ten years ago.
Brief biosketch: David graduated from Carleton with a Physics degree in 1986. While at Carleton, he worked with Prof. Joel Weisberg to help revive the 16" refractor in Goodsell Observatory and ran track and cross country. Upon graduating, he received a Churchill Scholarship to spend a year at Cambridge University, where he earned a masters degree in applied math and theoretical physics. He returned to the US to earn his Ph.D. in experimental high-energy physics at the University of Chicago. As a postdoc at the University of Michigan, he studied high-energy proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron, and was part of the collaboration that discovered the top quark in 1995. This work involved developing novel tools for extracting small, interesting signals from a large, noisy dataset. He began his faculty career at Johns Hopkins University in 1996, but returned to Michigan a few years later and has been there ever since. His recent work has focused on the study of small-body populations throughout the solar system, with an emphasis on Jupiter's Trojan asteroids and the region beyond Neptune. This work also involves developing novel tools for extracting small, interesting signals from a large, noisy dataset. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the namesake of asteroid 208117 Davidgerdes. He has received the University of Michigan's highest award for excellence in undergraduate teaching, an achievement he credits to the many outstanding teachers and role models he had at Carleton. In his spare time he enjoys cycling, homebrewing, beekeeping, and playing with his two silly retrievers, Rupert and Junie Bee.