Biography
Richard Jerousek earned his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Central Florida in 2018. His research interests include the dynamics and structure of planetary rings and the origin of planetary systems. He worked on the Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) team from 2008 until the end of the Cassini mission in 2017 studying the characteristics of the individual particles that make up Saturn’s rings as well as various ring structures which are were too small to be observed directly using Cassini’s cameras (< ~100 m) but significantly larger than the largest individual particles that make up the rings. He continues to analyze and interpret the wealth of data collected during the Cassini mission.
Research Area
Planetary rings and astrophysical disk dynamics
Research Opportunities for Students
I co-manage the UCF Planetary Rings research group with Dr. Colwell. We primarily study small structure, waves, and dynamics, using stellar and radio occultations which provide the highest resolution data of rings albeit as 1-dimensional traces of opacity. We can however put the viewing geometry and wavelength dependent measurements from multiple occultations together to study the 3-dimensional aspects of the rings similar to a crude computed tomography or CT scan in a hospital. Our group meets weekly to answer each other’s questions and discuss our progress toward our individual research goals. No matter how much or how little we’ve accomplished over the week. We encourage any interested undergraduate students to sit-in on our weekly meetings for 1 semester before attempting a Directed Independent Research for course credit.
Information on requirements:
Currently accepting: No
Undergraduate
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- Is it Paid? – No
- In a lab? – No
- Prerequisites – PHZ 3150–Numerical computing in Python (or equivalent experience)
- Learning materials:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0004-6256/140/6/1569/meta
https://iopscience.iop.org/book/mono/978-1-64327-714-1
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4020-9217-6_13
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11214-004-1455-8
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103516301221?via%3Dihub