Ask Knicole Colon \u201907 if Pluto is a planet and she says, bluntly, no \u2014 even though many non-astronomers and some scientists still hope to reinstate the planet\u2019s status. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of stuff in the solar system, and astronomers keep discovering objects that are similar to Pluto,\u201d she says. But Colon holds firm: Pluto is smaller than the eight major planets and has a unique oval-shaped orbit around the sun. This, she says, is why it is rightfully classified as a dwarf planet.<\/p>\n
She would know: Colon is a research astrophysicist at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, where she supports the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and the James Webb Space Telescope missions. She\u2019s also part of the International Astronomical Union, which voted to demote Pluto, and if another such case came about, she\u2019d have a say.<\/p>\n
The TESS project searches for exoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars in other solar systems. Researchers track when stars dim, which indicates that a planet may be passing by. Colon helps other research groups use that information to measure the mass of objects that could be exoplanets and figure out if they are likely to have an atmosphere similar to Earth.<\/p>\n
Where TESS is a \u201cwide and shallow survey of the sky,\u201d the James Webb Space Telescope will get specific. Set to launch on October 31, 2021, the James Webb is nearly three times as powerful as the Hubble Telescope. It will look at targets identified by TESS using infrared light \u201cto look for absorption of molecules like carbon dioxide and water, all of the basic building blocks of life,\u201d Colon says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more we know about what these exoplanets are made of, the more we can figure out where or how they formed,\u201d she says. \u201cThe goal isn\u2019t to find E.T. but to learn about us. It\u2019s really a matter of understanding how we got here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colon found her way to the skies through the silver screen. When she was 12 years old, she saw Independence Day, the 1996 blockbuster about an unlikely group of heroes who save the world from aliens.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to pause the movie and see more of the ship,\u201d she says. The next year, she saw Contact, an adaptation of a Carl Sagan book, in which Jodi Foster is a scientist chosen to make contact with extraterrestrial life. \u201cI was like the protagonist, Ellie. I wanted to know more.\u201d<\/p>\n
So her father bought her a telescope. \u201cHe would wake me up in the middle of the night to watch meteor showers,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Colon came to TCNJ to study physics, and co-founded the astronomy club, which set up \u201cstar parties\u201d where they\u2019d bring out telescopes that anyone could use. \u201cIt\u2019s been a journey,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Photo: Mike Morgan<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This alumna\u2019s life is out of this world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":330,"featured_media":11590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-corner"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/330"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11602"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11679,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions\/11679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}