Ranking of Penn State Space Research Soars

21 November 2002 -- Penn State faculty had the highest percentage increase in citations in the field of Space Science during a recent analysis by ISI Essential Science Indicators, an organization whose rankings are a respected indicator of quality across scientific disciplines.

"ISI is likely the most respected indicator of quality, and is used as one measure for gauging the significance of research accomplishments," explains Peter Mészáros, distinguished professor and head of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The number of times a scientific paper is cited is an indication of its influence and scientific importance. ISI analyzed the citation rate for research papers published since January 1992 concerning astronomy, astrophysics, and other space-related topics and determined that Penn State recently had the highest increase of any other institution in the number of citations for the papers its faculty have authored during the past ten years.

In recognition of the achievement, ISI has published on its web site an essay titled "Penn State's Rise in Space Science," which it invited Mészáros to write concerning the impact and future directions of Penn State's space-science research (http://in-cites.com/institutions/pennstate.html).

Mészáros says Penn State's impact in the field of space science has been rising steeply over the last decade. After its strong beginning during the mid-sixties under the leadership of John Hagen, a veteran of NASA's Vanguard project, the department's scientific contributions accelerated when Penn State became the lead institution in building the ACIS X-ray CCD camera for NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in the mid-1980s. The satellite with its ACIS camera has been steadily producing superb science on a variety of intriguing objects such as black holes, neutron stars, quasars, and supernovae since its launch in 1999.

"Also during the mid-1980s, Penn State scientists designed--and later built and begun to operate with colleagues from Texas, Stanford, Goettingen and Munich--a 10-meter-class optical instrument, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, which has been playing a major role during the past three years as a ground follow-up tool for space-based discoveries and as a tool for measuring the distances to the most distant quasars in the universe," Mészáros says. Among large telescopes, the Hobby-Eberly is uniquely well suited for extra-solar planet searches. Another notable accomplishment of the department's faculty, which Mészáros highlighted in his essay, is the very first detection of extra-solar planets, which were found using radio telescopes in 1991.

"This increase in space and ground instrumentation and observational activities has been matched with a corresponding growth in theoretical activities, most notably in gamma-ray-burst theory, which resulted in the first successful models for these objects; in numerical cosmology; and in gravitational physics," Mészáros says. Penn State is the home of major centers for quantum gravity and gravitational-wave physics, as well as a participant in the planning for the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO).

Other significant space-research activities spread among various departments and colleges at Penn State include organization of balloon-mounted cosmic-ray experiments, participation in the giant Auger cosmic-ray array, construction of atomic clocks for the International Space Station, experimentation in extended weightlessness in space, development of conceptual designs for NASA's Mars Odyssey missions, research in propulsion systems, space-based monitoring of the Earth's environment, performance of various astrobiology experiments, and participation in NASA's Astrobiology Institute as well as in the NASA Space Grant College program. Penn State also is a significant contributor to the Amanda/IceCube ultra-high-energy neutrino observatory being developed in Antarctica.

In addition, faculty in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics are planning scientific research projects with the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) and the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST).

"The most notable project among our new and future efforts is the Swift satellite, a multi-wavelength NASA mission dedicated to gamma-ray-burst detections and follow-up observations, which is scheduled for a September 2003 launch," Mészáros says. Penn State is the lead university partner and is responsible for development of two of the three main instruments. "Penn State also is responsible for running the ground control center, which is currently under construction on the Bristol site of the University Park campus," Mészáros says.

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CONTACTS:

Peter Meszaros: phone (+1)814-865-0418, e-mail <pmeszaros@astro.psu.edu>
Barbara K. Kennedy (PIO): phone (+1)814-863-4682, e-mail <science@psu.edu>