Marcia Neugebauer (born September 27, 1932) is a prominent American geophysicist who made contributions to space physics. Neugebauer's research was among the first that yielded the first direct measurements of the

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sol ...

and shed light on its physics and interaction with

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

Life

Neugebauer was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. She received a B.A. in

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1954, followed by an M.S. in physics from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

in Urbana in 1956. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Physics in 1998 by the

University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, m ...

. She was married to astrophysicist

Gerry Neugebauer Gerhart "Gerry" Neugebauer (3 September 1932 – 26 September 2014) was an American astronomer known for his pioneering work in infrared astronomy. Neugebauer was born in Göttingen, Germany and was the son of Otto Neugebauer, an Austrian-Amer ...

Work

Neugebauer was an investigator of the

Mariner 2 Mariner 2 (Mariner-Venus 1962), an American space probe to Venus, was the first robotic space probe to conduct a successful planetary encounter. The first successful spacecraft in the NASA Mariner program, it was a simplified version of the B ...

plasma analyzer that made the first extensive measurements of the solar wind and discovery of its properties. She also developed analytical instruments that orbited Earth, some set up on the moon by the

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...

astronauts, and others that flew by

Halley's comet Halley's Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley, is a short-period comet visible from Earth every 75–79 years. Halley is the only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the on ...

on the European

Giotto mission ''Giotto'' was a European robotic spacecraft mission from the European Space Agency. The spacecraft flew by and studied Halley's Comet and in doing so became the first spacecraft to make close up observations of a comet. On 13 March 1986, the s ...

. Neugebauer was Study Scientist for many space missions during her long career with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

and held several management positions at the Propulsion Laboratory, including Manager of the Physics and Space Physics sections, Manager of the Mariner Mark II study team, and Project Scientist for Rangers 1 and 2 and the

Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby The Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby (CRAF) was a cancelled plan for a NASA-led exploratory mission designed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s, that planned to send a spacecraft to encounter an asteroid ...

mission. Neugebauer served as president of the

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, space, and planetary scientists and enthusiasts that according to their website includes 130,000 people (not members). AGU's a ...

from 1994-1996 and was Editor-in-Chief of its journal ''

Reviews of Geophysics ''Reviews of Geophysics'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Geophysical Union. The current editor-in-chief is Fabio Florindo ( National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology� ...

''. She also chaired the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Solar and Space Physics.

Awards and honors

In 1967 the Museum of Science and Industry named Neugebauer "California Woman Scientist of the Year." She received many awards from NASA, including the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award, the Outstanding Leadership Medal, and the Distinguished Service Medal (the highest award given by NASA). In 1997 she was inducted in the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame. In 2004 Neugebauer was awarded the William Kaula Award and in 2010 was awarded the Arctowski Medal from the National Academy of Sciences "for definitively establishing the existence of the solar wind, critical to understanding the physics of the heliosphere, and for elucidating many of its key properties." In 2010 Neugebauer was awarded the

George Ellery Hale Prize The George Ellery Hale Prize, or Hale Prize, is awarded annually by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society for outstanding contributions over an extended period of time to the field of solar astronomy. The prize is named in ...

of the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society "for her seminal contributions to the discovery of the solar wind and her extensive and ongoing contributions to solar-heliospheric physics."

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Marcia Neugebauer on 18 July 2017, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Pioneers of space physics: A career in the solar wind - Marcia Neugebauer (J. of Geophysical Research)

* ttp://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/119285/Marcia-Neugebauer-Distinguised-visiting-scientist-Jet-Propulsion-Laboratory/ WITI Hall of Fame - Marcia Neugebauer
American Geophysical Union, Past President Biographies: 1980-2000

Neugebauer Receives 2004 Kaula Award
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neugebauer, Marcia American geophysicists 1932 births Living people American women physicists Cornell University alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American physicists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists Women geophysicists