Friday, April 17, 2026

New and exciting activities in the
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences

Recent News From McDonnell Center Fellows

Zifan Lin’s search for hidden worlds

At the heart of our galaxy, where stars crowd together in staggering density, Zifan Lin is searching for planets orbiting the remnants of dead stars.

Lin, a McDonnell Center Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis, is part of a broader effort to understand exoplanets in some of the most extreme environments in the universe. He works with Tansu Daylan to identify planets orbiting white dwarfs. White dwarfs are the dense, cooling remnants left behind after stars like our Sun exhaust their nuclear fuel.

Saori Pastore promoted to full professor of physics

We are delighted to announce the promotion of Saori Pastore to full professor, recognizing her outstanding contributions to research, teaching, and service.

Pastore's research is focused on understanding how nuclear properties emerge from the underlying nucleonic dynamics, with the broader goal of contributing to ongoing experimental efforts in nuclear physics, fundamental symmetries, and neutrino physics.

McDonnell Center Fellows in the News

Bhupal Dev offers new look at how the Universe evolved
Bhupal Dev | The American Bazaar

Recent Publications by McDonnell Center Fellows

Broussard, M., Lodders, K., Carpenter, P. K., Koefoed, P., Jolliff, B. L., Wang, K., et al.(2026). CI chondrite Oued Chebeika 002 links asteroids Bennu and Ryugu to common parent body. Meteoritics and Planetary Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/maps.70138

Esmer, E. M., & Daylan, T. (2025). Eclipse timing variations of circumbinary substellar objects in TESS data. The Astronomical Journal, 170(6), 322. 

Orenstein, B. J., VanBommel, S., et al. (2026). Igneous and sedimentary origins of Jezero crater units from X-ray crystal mapping on Mars. Communications Earth & Environment, 7(1). 

Wu, Y., Daylan, T., et al. (2026). Detection of Four Cold Jupiters through Combined Analyses of Radial Velocity and Astrometry Data*. The Astronomical Journal, 171(3), 189. 

Yokoyama, T., Lodders, K., et al. (2026). Ryugu Reference Project: Recommendations from the Measurement Definition Team. Meteoritics and Planetary Science. 1-30.

Dickhoff, W. H., & Van Neck, D. (2024). Many-Body theory exposed! In WORLD SCIENTIFIC eBooks. 

Andreoli, L., Weiss, R., Chambers-Wall, G., Pastore, S., Piarulli, M., et al. (2026). Relativistic corrections for lepton-nucleus scattering in the short-time approximation. Physical Review. C, 113(4). 

Aguilar, R. J., Meng, T. M., et al. (2026). Revealing the internal structure of Mars‐Analog glaciers from Drone‐Based radar sounding. Journal of Geophysical Research Planets, 131(3). 

Archer, A., Buckley, J. H., Hughes, Z., Rabinowitz, P. L., et al. (2025b). Measurement of the Photosphere Oblateness of γ Cassiopeiae via Stellar Intensity Interferometry with the VERITAS Observatory. The Astrophysical Journal, 995(2), 191. 

Sui, Q., Meng, T. M., et al. (2026). Hydrometeorological and Topographic Controls on Rock Glacier Kinematics: A case study from Southeastern Alaska. Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface, 131(4). 

Huff, M. F., Lin, Z., et al. (2026). Temperature and conductivity in shock compressed bridgmanite  MgSiO₃  up to  2  TPa. Physical Review. B./Physical Review. B, 113(13). 

Liu, X., Houghton, J., Vaci, Z., Fike, D. A., & Jun, Y. (2026). Sulfide Transport through Nanochannels in Carbonates Enables Simultaneous Cobalt Extraction and Carbon Mineralization. ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering. 

Christian, J. R., VanBommel, S. J., et al. (2026). Characterization of compositional endmembers in PIXL scans. Icarus, 453, 117060. 

Extreme ionization from a single compact accretor: JWST spectroscopy of the ULX Holmberg II X-1

Astrophysics & Space Sciences Seminar
Federico Fogantini
STSci
TODAY, Friday, April 17
9:00am, Compton 241

Weird Stars

St. Louis Astronomical Society April Meeting
Richard Heuermann
St. Louis Astronomical Society
TONIGHT, Friday, April 17
7:30pm, McDonnell 162

 Learning Quantum
Many-Body States

Physics Colloquium
Jane Kim
Argonne National Laboratory
Wednesday, April 22
3:00pm, Compton 340

Science Results from the Tierras Observatory: The Wonders of Night-to-Night Photometric Stability

Astrophysics & Space Sciences Seminar
Juliana Garcia-Mejia
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Friday, April 24
9:00am, Compton 241

Earth Data Challenge:
Final Presentation and Awards

EEPS Brown Bag 

Friday, April 24
12:00pm, Rudolph 301

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Interim Director: William McKinnon
Associate Director: Michael Nowak
Assistant to the Director: Vickie Gee
Communications Specialist: Alison Verbeck

Compiled and edited by Alison Verbeck. Please send any contributions to alison@wustl.edu.

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