Event
MSE Seminar: Benjamin McGee, UMD
Wednesday, January 29, 2025
3:30 p.m.
Room 2110 Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building
Sherri Tatum
301-405-5240
statum12@umd.edu
Assessing Material Breakdown at a (Great) Distance - Untangling Space Weathering
Abstract: Beginning in the early 2000s, a conundrum existed between the signatures of meteoritic minerals and those of the asteroids thought to have produced them. So-called "space weathering," the process of material breakdown in space due to ionizing radiation and micrometeoroid bombardment, was thought to be the cause. However, the more research was conducted on Earth to find a source, the murkier the landscape became. Which is the driving force? Micrometeoroids, or ionizing radiation? And why were asteroids made of the same material and found in the same environment not observed to be weathering in the same way? This presentation explores an interdisciplinary journey beginning with these questions, through the identification of a "Rosetta stone" of space weathering closer to home than one might think, and concluding with a potential - and perhaps unlikely - solution.
Bio: Ben McGee, a recent addition to the UMD staff as Assistant Director of Radiation Safety in the Department of Environmental Safety, Sustainability, and Risk's Office of Research Safety, has a multidisciplinary background in planetary geophysics, geomorphology, nuclear emergency response, radiation safety, spacecraft design, and theoretical physics. Prior to coming to UMD, Ben notably served as a senior scientist in the Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) nuclear search and flight survey programs, as well as serving as a senior Subject Matter Expert interdiscplinary physicist at Axiom Space and Bigelow Aerospace, where he designed radiation shielding, detection instrumentation, and performed astronaut radiation dosimetry for three private missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and the BEAM spacecraft currently attached to ISS's Node 3.
