AA
Member Since 1986
Alan Alan Stern
Scientist, Southwest Research Institute Boulder
Dr. Alan Stern is planetary scientist, a former NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator, a former board chair of the Commercial Space flight Federation, and a current member of the National Science Board. In 2020, NASA selected Dr. Stern to fly the first NASA-funded researcher aboard a Virgin Galactic suborbital space mission. He has been on 29 NASA and ESA space science mission teams, 14 of which he played a principal investigator (PI) role, including the nearly $1B New Horizon
Professional Experience
Southwest Research Institute Boulder
Scientist
1991 - Present
Education
Doctorate
1989
Honors & Awards
Union Fellow
Received December 2021
Citation
For pioneering work in the exploration of the outer Solar System and characterization of the lunar exosphere
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Eugene Shoemaker Lecture
Received December 2019
Publications
Snow Crash: Compaction Craters on (486958) Arrokoth and Other Small KBOs, With Implications
Evidence from Arrokoth and comets strongly suggests a very low density for this and similar small Kuiper belt objects. Plausible compositions imply...
July 06, 2022
Collisions of Small Kuiper Belt Objects With (486958) Arroko...
December 10, 2021
Pluto's Antipodal Terrains Imply a Thick Subsurface Ocean an...
January 26, 2021
Charon: A Brief History of Tides
July 06, 2020
AGU Abstracts
New Horizons’ Student Dust Counter Measurements: The Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt at 58 AU Heliocentric Distance
AGU 2024
planetary sciences | 11 december 2024
Alex Doner, Mihaly Horanyi, Pontus C. Brandt, Thom...
The Kuiper Belt is the primary source of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) in the outer solar system, originating from collisions between Kuiper Be...
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Preparing for the Termination Shock Encounter with New Horizons
AGU 2024
spa-solar and heliospheric physics | 11 december 2024
Pontus C. Brandt, Matthew E. Hill, Heather A. Elli...
Across the Termination Shock (TS) the solar wind was expected to transition from supersonic to subsonic and heat by two orders of magnitude. Voyager 2...
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A “Valley” in Heliospheric Energetic Particle Intensities and Implications for a New Horizons Encounter with the Solar Wind Termination Shock
AGU 2024
spa-solar and heliospheric physics | 11 december 2024
Romina Nikoukar, Matthew E. Hill, Robert B. Decker...
Launched in 2006, the New Horizons (NH) spacecraft is currently at 59 au from the Sun and expected to observe the solar wind termination shock (TS) as...
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