| Dr. Cristina Dalle Ore Curriculum Vitae: 
Cristina is one astronomer who’s gone to the dark side. In particular, she studies the organic compounds known as tholins – blackish compounds that form when ultraviolet light from the Sun impinges on water, ice, methane, and nitrogen. This dark, low-temperature material covers many of the moons and other small bodies of the outer solar system, and understanding how it was formed and where it is found could offer us important clues to life’s origin. Cristina doesn’t have to visit these cold worlds to study their tholins. Instead, she matches spectroscopic observations to computer-generated spectra. To do this, she varies the amount of each of the tholin ingredients, as well as the grain size of the compounds, in making the computer-generated spectra that she then matches with the telescopic observations. This is an esoteric kind of detective work that is giving insight into a class of organic materials that might be implicated in the early chemistry that led to life.
Projects
Outer Solar System Bodies
NNA05CS63A
This is a proposal for the continuation of a productive program of the reduction, analysis, and modeling of astronomical data consisting of infrared spectroscopic and radiometric observations of outer Solar System bodies. These data are acquired with ground-based telescopes, the Cassini spacecraft (Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer), and the Spitzer Space Telescope.
The goal of the work being proposed is twofold:
• To continue in our quest to understand the composition, and therefore history of the surfaces and atmospheres of different bodies in the outer Solar System.
• To take advantage of the new and better data now available through space missions.
The solid bodies of the Solar System include the natural satellites of the outer planets, the planet Pluto, the asteroids, the Centaur objects, the Kuiper Belt objects, the comets and Saturn's rings. The study of their surfaces can shed light on their history: how they formed and where, how they developed and interacted with other bodies in their vicinity. The largest of the Solar System bodies are known to have atmospheres, but more bodies might have a tenuous and transitory atmosphere.
The Cassini mission is producing a wealth of information on Saturn and its satellites. Spectra as well as images of Phoebe, Iapetus, Enceladus, Titan, Rhea as well as Saturn and its rings have been streaming in shedding light on some old questions, but posing more new and intriguing ones on the composition of these icy bodies.
At the same time the Spitzer Space Telescope mission has been bringing in data in the farther IR that, among other results, has already lead to the re-evaluation of the albedo level of some Kuiper Belt Objects. More proposed work will yield data that will extend the spectrum of some of these small and far-away bodies, giving us the opportunity to set some important constraints on their composition and therefore possibly allowing us to answer the question of their origin and influence in the Solar System.
Cassini Data Analysis and Organic Materials on Solar System Bodies
NNX08BA80A
1. Cassini Data Analysis
A. Extract spectra and spectral images of Saturn’s satellites from the data provided by the Cassini VIMS experiment (through D. Cruikshank, who is a member of the VIMS team)
B. Model VIMS spectra using scattering codes and optical constants of ices, carbonaceous materials, and minerals.
C. Maintain and expand the existing library of optical properties of materials of relevance in the modeling of planetary surfaces and atmospheres.
2. Other Data Analysis
A. Extract information such as band positions, band shapes, continuum levels, etc. from spectra of numerous astronomical objects to aid in the determination of their compositions and the detailed structure of their surfaces and atmospheres.
B. Model spectra of Pluto, Kuiper Belt Objects, Centaur objects, asteroids, and comets using scattering codes and optical constants of ices, carbonaceous materials, and minerals.
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