The School is celebrating the announcement that Dr. Beatriz Sanchez-Cano has been awarded a prestigious STFC Ernest Rutherford fellowship for her pioneering research in planetary science.
Dr Beatriz Sánchez-Cano has been awarded a prestigious Ernest Rutherford Fellowship to continue research into the interactions between the Sun’s ‘solar wind’ and the atmospheres of Venus, Earth and Mars through study of ground-based observations and data from space probes such as BepiColombo, of which the University of Leicester plays an important role.
Her work will advance our understanding of habitability in the Solar System, and inform robotic exploration and eventually human exploration.
The Ernest Rutherford Fellowships are awarded to early-career researchers who have leadership potential in their chosen field.
Dr Sánchez-Cano is one of 10 talented researchers to receive a five-year award from £5.7million total of STFC funding to establish an independent research programme.
Dr Beatriz Sánchez-Cano, Ernest Rutherford Fellow and part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester, said: “This Fellowship will allow me to provide a better and necessary understanding of the influence of the Sun on three different types of planetary upper atmospheres. This is very important for understanding planetary habitability.
“I’m very honoured and grateful for this incredible opportunity to establish my own independent research and consolidate my scientific career at the University of Leicester, which has always been very supportive.”
Professor Philip Baker, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Enterprise, said: “As a University we are proud to support outstanding scientists throughout their career, and I wish to congratulate Dr Sánchez-Cano on this prestigious Fellowship award.
“We are proud that Leicester is leading the way in space research and enterprise, and the opening of the first phase of our Space Park Leicester development will enable increased collaboration between researchers and high-profile industry partners. This underlines our ambition to play a key role in expanding our understanding of the Earth, our Solar System, and beyond.”
Dr Sánchez-Cano has also received the 2020 Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists from the European Geosciences Union for her study of Mars’ ionosphere, and is a European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) guest investigator for the BepiColombo mission as well as co-investigator for the MARSIS instrument onboard ESA’s Mars Express mission.
Dr Sanchez-Cano describes her project here:
Mars and Earth are the only planets in our solar system that we know host liquid water either in the surface or subsurface and are in the habitable zone of the Sun. Comparisons between them, and with other terrestrial planets, allow us to investigate the requirements for the habitability of a system.
However, a critical aspect that determines the actual habitability of a planet is its interaction with the solar wind, the plasma from Sun’s atmosphere that expands away from the Sun.
This interaction controls how and how much atmosphere is lost into space, how upper atmospheres dissipate energy from the solar wind, or how much radiation can reach the surface of a planet.
Dr Sanchez-Cano will investigate the dynamic response of the upper atmospheres to solar wind and space weather of Venus, Earth, and Mars. This approach will advance current understanding of habitability in the solar system, and inform robotic exploration and eventually human exploration of the solar system.
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