image: Michael Shay, UD assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is exploring the mysteries of space weather. view more
Credit: Kathy F. Atkinson, University of Delaware
Michael Shay, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Delaware, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The competitive funding award, one of NSF's highest honors, recognizes and supports young faculty who are deemed most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. Winners are selected based on high-quality research and its integration with education initiatives.
An estimated $470,000 in NSF funding over the next five years will support Shay's research on magnetic reconnection, a process that can allow high-energy particles from the solar wind to enter the Earth's magnetic field, endangering astronauts and satellites in space and electrical systems on Earth.
"We are very fortunate to have Michael at the University of Delaware, and we are very proud of his accomplishments," Tom Apple, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said. "He is doing pioneering research in plasma and space physics and pushing the boundaries of scientific computation. He brings a great deal of enthusiasm to his work, and this energy is contagious. His Career Award is both a recognition of his past work and his promise for the future."
Barreling through space at over a million miles per hour, the solar wind is made up of plasma, which comprises 99 percent of the visible universe. Plasma is the fourth state of matter--beyond a solid, liquid or gas. It's what stars and lightning are made of.
"Plasma is a gas so hot that its constituent atoms have had some of their electrons stripped off," Shay said. "Because it is composed of charged particles, it acts very differently than ordinary gases, such as the air we breathe."
Shay's research on magnetic reconnection is fundamental to understanding space weather, the conditions and phenomena in the region of space surrounding the Earth. When the solar wind slams into the Earth's magnetic field, it distorts it, creating the magnetosphere--a teardrop-shaped region of plasma around the Earth. The magnetosphere and its associated magnetic field shield the near-Earth region from solar wind. Magnetic reconnection, however, can energize particles and rearrange magnetic field lines, leaving a chink in the planet's magnetic armor. Energetic particles can then enter the magnetosphere and damage satellites, injure astronauts, disrupt power grids on Earth and create the aurora borealis, or northern lights.
Shay is using a combination of analytic theory and computer simulation to better understand the process of magnetic reconnection, which has applications not only to plasmas in space but also to plasmas used in laboratory research on nuclear energy.
To date, Shay has run simulations on 2,048 computer processors simultaneously over a 50-hour period to simulate a very basic reconnection problem. That's more than 100,000 hours of computing time--an effort that would take one computer, operating continuously, more than 11 years to complete. Shay runs some calculations on local machines and others at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in Berkeley, Calif.
He hopes his research eventually may lead to a greater capability to predict space weather.
"If we want to send astronauts to the moon or Mars, they could be injured or even killed by radiation from a solar storm," Shay said. "There are also many communications satellites orbiting the Earth, and the high-energy electrons in this plasma can damage them. Space weather may have been the reason for the failure of the Galaxy 4 communications spacecraft in 1998, which left 45 million people without pager service. If you know that a strong solar storm is coming, you can put satellites into a 'safe' mode that turns off instruments to prevent damage from high-energy electrons," he said.
Shay has always been interested in science and math--and space. Growing up in Champaign, Ill., he remembers a second-grade homework assignment in which students were to select a country to report on. Shay picked Spain. However, as he was researching the country in the World Book Encyclopedia, he couldn't help flipping to the pages on space travel.
An important goal of his NSF project is to engage more students in space physics research.
"There are not enough people being trained to do space weather problems," he said, "We're working to step up the number of students we educate in this field."
Shay is now advising three graduate students focusing on the topic at UD. He also is teaching a graduate course on plasma physics, and he is planning a new course on space physics for undergraduates.
Shay also is committed to working with high-school students, particularly minorities, through Delaware Futures, a program that helps students with unrealized potential to become successful college applicants. This summer, a student from the program will intern in Shay's lab, and Shay hopes to welcome many more students in the future.
"The beauty of physics is that it gives you the ability to look at a complicated situation, distill out what is most important, and provide a simple, intuitive explanation," Shay said.
"People think of physicists as just solving equations, but it's much more creative than that," he added. "Often the work hinges on finding the right question to ask. It's like a game of Jeopardy," he said, "but all you know are the subjects at the very top."
Shay received his bachelor's degree in physics from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland. He joined the UD faculty in 2005.