Sarah Hörst

Sarah Hörst (born April 22, 1982) is an assistant professor of planetary sciences at Johns Hopkins University, who focuses on understanding planetary atmospheric hazes, in particular the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan.

Sarah Hörst
Born (1982-04-22) April 22, 1982
Alma mater
AwardsLAD Early Career Award
Scientific career
Institutions
ThesisPost-Cassini Investigations of Titan Atmospheric Chemistry

Education

Hörst attended high school in Gainesville, Florida.[1] Her mother is a neuroscientist and her father was a medical doctor.[2] She received a Bachelors in Planetary Science and Literature from the California Institute of Technology.[3] At Caltech she worked with Michael Brown studying Europa and Titan using the Celestron telescope.[3] Whilst the telescope has been described as "amateur", Hörst managed to image Titan to calculate a light curve and look for clouds.[4] She was on the Caltech track team.[3] After graduating in 2004, Hörst joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and worked on the image analysis for the Imaging Science Subsystem of the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft.[5] She also worked at Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG).[6] She earned her PhD, Post-Cassini Investigations of Titan Atmospheric Chemistry, in 2011 from the University of Arizona.[7] Here she worked in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory studying the chemistry of Titan's atmosphere. Her team was the first to show that amino acids and nucleotide bases may be present in Titan's atmosphere.[8] She was awarded the Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences.[2]

Research

Hörst moved to the University of Colorado Boulder as a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow in 2011.[9] In 2014, Hörst joined Johns Hopkins University[10] as an Assistant Professor where she specializes in the atmospheric chemistry of planets and their moons.[11]

In March 2018 Hörst's group demonstrated that they could simulate the atmosphere of alien worlds inside the laboratory, allowing them to analyse the composition of their haze.[12] The study will aid in the analysis of data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope, which NASA expect to launch in 2021.[13]

She is part of the Science & Engineering team for the proposed Dragonfly mission to Titan.[14]

Awards and honors

Hörst won the American Astronomical Society (AAS), Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD) Early Career Award for 2020.[15]

Writing & science outreach

Hörst's work has appeared in Smithsonian, as well as on SciShow and the BBC News.[16][17][18][19][20] She works with primary and secondary school teachers to enable them to use planetary science in their classroom.[21]

She has appeared on The Planetary Society's show Planetary Radio.[22]

References
  1. "Sarah M. Hörst". www.sarahhorst.com. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  2. "Sarah Horst to receive Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences". DRI Desert Research Institute. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  3. "Old Caltech Telescope Yields New Science | Caltech". The California Institute of Technology. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  4. 1969-, Lorenz, Ralph (2010). Titan unveiled : Saturn's mysterious moon explored. Mitton, Jacqueline. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780691146331. OCLC 703593875.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. "Sarah M. Hörst". sarahhorst.com. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  6. Cyril, Szopa; Nathalie, Carrasco; Ella, Sciamma-O; Guy, Cernogora; Edith, Hadamcik; Veronique, Vuitton; Roland, Thissen; Jean-Yves, Bonnet; Eric, Quirico (2010). "Titan's aerosols modes of production and properties, as seen with the PAMPRE laboratory experiment". 38Th Cospar Scientific Assembly. 38: 13. Bibcode:2010cosp...38..565S.
  7. M., Horst, Sarah (2011). "Post-Cassini Investigations of Titan Atmospheric Chemistry". Bibcode:2011PhDT.......282H. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. "Titan's Haze May Hold Ingredients for Life". UANews. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  9. "Sarah Horst | NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellows". aapf-fellows.org. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  10. "Dr. Sarah Hörst of Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Joins HEMI Faculty -". Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  11. "| NASA Astrobiology Institute". nai.nasa.gov. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  12. "Johns Hopkins University Researchers Recreate Exoplanet Atmospheric Chemistry In The Lab". DoonWire. March 10, 2018. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  13. Hörst, Sarah M.; He, Chao; Lewis, Nikole K.; Kempton, Eliza M.-R.; Marley, Mark S.; Morley, Caroline V.; Moses, Julianne I.; Valenti, Jeff A.; Vuitton, Véronique (2018). "Haze production rates in super-Earth and mini-Neptune atmosphere experiments". Nature Astronomy. 2 (4): 303–306. arXiv:1801.06512. Bibcode:2018NatAs...2..303H. doi:10.1038/s41550-018-0397-0. ISSN 2397-3366.
  14. "Our Team". The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. 2017. Retrieved March 2, 2020.
  15. "Prizes | Laboratory Astrophysics Division (LAD)". lad.aas.org. Retrieved January 7, 2020.
  16. Daley, Jason. "Purple Haze: Alien Atmospheres Recreated In the Lab". Smithsonian. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  17. SciShow Space (March 16, 2018), We Found Superconductors in Meteorites!, retrieved April 5, 2018
  18. "The Space Special, Science in Action - BBC World Service". BBC. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  19. Halton, Mary (March 9, 2018). "Alien atmospheres recreated on Earth". BBC News. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  20. Loffhagen, Matthew. "Scientists Have Recreated Alien Environments Here on Earth". Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  21. "TITANic Moons and Planets: Sarah Hörst hosts Saturn Week on Real Scientists". Real Scientists. September 10, 2017. Retrieved April 5, 2018.
  22. Hörst, Sarah; Lakdawalla, Emily; Betts, Bruce; Kaplan, Matt (March 27, 2019). "Dunes, Walnut Shells, Alien Impostors and Other Worlds: A Visit with Sarah Hörst". The Planetary Society. Retrieved March 3, 2020.
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