NASA Awards UNH Ph.D. Student Prestigious Research Grant

Richard Gorby, a UNH Ph.D. candidate in the Space Science Center, has been awarded $98,939 from NASA's Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) Early Career Research Program. Gorby's research largely focuses on space weather, and this award will provide him with support to study ion transport in our Earth's magnetic shield. 

 

Research grants that support early-career scientists are especially important because they help train the next generation of experts who will lead the scientific community and shape the future of the scientific system. Gorby is the second UNH Ph.D. student to receive the prestigious FINESST award in 2026, alongside Thanapon "Bank" Aiamsai. 

 

Gorby's two-year project, titled “Following Ions Through the Great Observatory From the Magnetotail to Inner Magnetosphere,” combines a simulated magnetosphere with in-situ data throughout the Great Heliophysics Observatory. This study aims to probe the evolution of ion population flows from the point of reconnection in the magnetotail to the inner magnetosphere, where they deposit their energy. The magnetosphere is simulated using the Multiscale Atmosphere-Geospace Environment developed by the NASA DRIVE Center for Geospace Storms. Data is taken from many sources, including the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, Two Wide-Angle Imaging Neutral-Atom Spectrometers (TWINS), and Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms All-Sky-Imagers (THEMIS-ASI).

 

Earth is bombarded with energy from the sun from the solar wind and coronal mass ejections, deforming the Earth’s magnetosphere and providing a pathway to energize plasma and power particle transport processes. This can result in charged particle populations which can travel earthward and often form flow channels where ions penetrate as Bursty Bulk Flows (BBFs). These BBFs can lead to a buildup of the ring current but do not always penetrate within geosynchronous orbit. There is a need to improve our understanding of the transport of ions from the reconnection region to the inner magnetosphere. Such ions can contribute to beautiful phenomena such as the lights of the aurora, but they can also damage ground and space-based infrastructure such as the satellites used for GPS systems.