<\/p>\n
Dr. Kerri Donaldson Hanna showcases\u00a0parts of a spectrometer at her lab in the UCF Physical Sciences Building. The spectrometer will analyze lunar dirt to determine its composition and further our understanding of the moon’s formation.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of UCF Planetary Sciences Group<\/p>\n
In her years as an undergraduate at Florida Institute of Technology, Professor Dr. Kerri Donaldson Hanna took a flight on NASA’s infamous Vomit Comet.<\/p>\n
This is just one of Donaldson\u00a0Hanna\u2019s experiences on her\u00a0way to UCF.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pilot that we had was new, and so, they left him to test it out on us,\u201d Donaldson Hanna said. \u201cHe had not done that before, and so he was actually\u00a0doing it too aggressively. Instead of getting zero gravity, we were getting negative\u00a0gravity, which means we were all plastered to the roof of the plane.\u201d<\/p>\n
An expert in planetary science with a doctorate in geological sciences, she found her interest in planetary science during an undergraduate internship at the University of Arizona. When she found that she could study planets in such a tangible way using spectroscopy,\u00a0she knew she\u00a0had found\u00a0her interest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s kind of a fun research space to be in,\u201d Donaldson Hanna said.\u00a0\u201cBecause planetary science in general\u00a0speak, is just like studying the planets in our solar\u00a0system or\u00a0studying planets around other stars.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spectroscopy is the study of energy broken up by wavelength, said Donaldson Hanna. Looking at a rainbow is\u00a0spectroscopy because you have light\u00a0that’s\u00a0broken up\u00a0into the individual colors.<\/p>\n
After Donaldson Hanna got her doctorate at Brown University, she spent the next five-and-a-half years at the University of Oxford in\u00a0England\u00a0as a postdoctoral research fellow. She had come from England to the United States, looking for a\u00a0permanent\u00a0place for research.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cAfter\u00a0you get your Ph.D. and\u00a0you’ve\u00a0done a postdoc, you want that permanent, you know, place that you can go and start teaching and advising your own students and having your own research group,\u201d Donaldson Hanna said. \u201cSo, I interviewed here at UCF.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Angelina Minocha, second-year graduate student, is working on her doctoral degree in physics on the planetary science track, and Donaldson Hanna is her advisor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Minocha said she wants to be a professor in planetary sciences, and Donaldson Hanna has been the model of the kind of instructor she wants to become.\u00a0Minocha said\u00a0Hanna\u2019s experience researching in another country\u00a0has helped her as an international student\u00a0from India. Certain experiences come from living in a foreign country that teach you how to interact with people who have had different experiences than you have had, Minocha said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo,\u00a0when she would talk to me about her time at Oxford and engaging with researchers\u00a0that have very different point of views on how research should be done, I think that has\u00a0been something I\u2019ve learned from,” Minocha said.\u00a0Minocha said that the most impactful part of her experiences has been the confidence\u00a0from what she is learning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m learning enough that I see myself on that path that I\u2019ve seen other graduate students on,\u201d Minocha said. \u201cThat\u2019s just because I\u2019ve had a good balance of, like, I get to do things on my\u00a0own,\u00a0but I also feel a level of comfort in asking her questions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Donaldson Hanna was happy to see how excited the students at UCF were for space and how eager they were to begin research. UCF quickly became her first choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI also really liked how pro-space, you know, the university was,\u201d Donaldson Hanna said. \u201cIt is\u00a0kind of fun\u00a0to be in this environment where, you know, people\u00a0love\u00a0space,\u00a0people love doing all aspects of space research. And\u00a0so\u00a0I\u00a0definitely liked\u00a0that\u00a0about\u00a0UCF.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Donaldson Hanna has been on multiple lunar missions, including a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that was launched in 2009, before she came to UCF, and is still collecting and transmitting data today. She also\u00a0worked on a mission in 2025 called Lunar Trailblazer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team sadly lost communication with\u00a0Lunar Trailblazer shortly after launch. Future missions she is working on are going to the South Pole and North Pole of the moon in 2027, but what her eyes are set on now is Lunar VISE.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Lunar VISE is a mission approved in 2022, where Donaldson Hanna and Dr. Adrienne Dove, along with a team of graduate students at UCF, are sending a lander and rover to the surface of the moon. The goal is to land on Mons Gruithuisen Gamma, a region between two\u00a0craters on the moon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Donaldson Hanna said the purpose of this mission is to analyze lunar dirt, known as regolith, to gain\u00a0a better\u00a0understanding of how the moon formed\u00a0and why the surface of the moon looks the way it does now.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Using lunar regolith stored in the Exolith lab at UCF, Donaldson Hanna and her graduate students can analyze with spectroscopy the differences between lunar regolith and Earth rock.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Lunar VISE team\u00a0will have the rover\u00a0on\u00a0the moon to collect data and the infrared fingerprint of the rocks, Donaldson Hanna said. Then they will take the lunar\u00a0dirt and put it in their chambers in the lab to build a library of data to compare what is measured in the lab and what is seen in space.<\/p>\n
The next steps for the team will be to ship out their instruments to be put on the lander and the rover, with the launch date set for 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of our instruments are coming along, and\u00a0so\u00a0we’re\u00a0excited because, like,\u00a0yeah, the next step will be for them, for us to ship\u00a0our\u00a0instruments,\u201d Donaldson Hanna said.\u00a0\u201cThey will launch in July of 2028.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Kerri Donaldson Hanna showcases\u00a0parts of a spectrometer at her lab in the UCF Physical Sciences Building. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[4401,115,139,141,140,1810],"class_list":["post-247590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-academics","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-science_and_health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}