Luisa María Lara López (born 9 June 1966) is a Spanish astrophysicist. Since 2010, she has been a

Spanish National Research Council The Spanish National Research Council (, CSIC) is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe. Its main objective is to develop and promote research that will help bring about scientific and techn ...

(CSIC) Researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in the Solar System Department. Her line of research deals with the study of planetary and

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

ary atmospheres and

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

s through the development of physical-chemical models and remote and ''in situ'' exploration of the bodies of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...

. Her work has become especially visible thanks to her participation as a researcher on the ''

Rosetta Rosetta ( ) or Rashid (, ; ) is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Rosetta Stone was discovered there in 1799. Founded around the 9th century on the site of the ancient town of Bolbitine, R ...

'' mission for the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

(ESA).

Biography

Born in

Alcalá la Real Alcalá la Real is a city in the province of Jaén, Spain. According to the 2024 INE figures, the city had a population of 21,581. Geography Alcalá la Real is situated from the provincial capital, Jaén, and from Granada, on the slopes of L ...

, Luisa María Lara attributes her love and pleasure of looking at the sky to her mother, who took advantage of the lack of public lighting in , a small village in Granada, which allowed greater visibility. She took up astronomy at an early age – at three she was fascinated by the sky, and at seven it was clear that she wanted to devote herself to science and the study of stars. She entertained herself by drawing the different phases of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker ...

that she saw from the terrace of the house in notebooks. She attended secondary school in Pinos Puente, took Baccalaureate studies in Íllora, and her University Orientation Course (COU) in Granada. She earned a licentiate in Physical Sciences at the

University of Granada The University of Granada (, UGR) is a public university located in the city of Granada, Spain, and founded in 1531 by Emperor Charles V. With more than 60,000 students, it is the fourth largest university in Spain. Apart from the city of Granad ...

in 1989 and received her doctorate in 1993. Since 2010, she has been a CSIC Scientific Researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in the Solar System Department. She has worked at various international institutions, such as the

Paris Observatory The Paris Observatory (, ), a research institution of the Paris Sciences et Lettres University, is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world. Its historic building is on the Left Ban ...

in Meudon, the

Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (abbreviation: MPS; ) is a research institute in astronomy and astrophysics located in Göttingen, Germany, where it relocated in February 2014 from the nearby village of Lindau (Katlenburg-Lindau ...

, ESA, and the

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan The (NAOJ) is an astronomy, astronomical research organisation comprising several facilities in Japan, as well as an observatory in Hawaii and Chile. It was established in 1988 as an amalgamation of three existing research organizations - the To ...

in Tokyo. In addition, Lara has developed theoretical models of atmospheric composition to analyze the data acquired by the

Herschel Space Observatory The Herschel Space Observatory was a space observatory built and operated by the European Space Agency (ESA). It was active from 2009 to 2013, and was the largest infrared telescope ever launched until the launch of the James Webb Space Telesco ...

(from 2009 to 2013) of

Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

Uranus Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a Supercritical fluid, supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or Volatile ( ...

, and

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

. These models aim to explain the origin, evolution, and abundance of water vapor (among other compounds), proposing different hypotheses, from vaporization of micrometeoroids to cometary impacts in these atmospheres. She has been deputy coordinator of the Space Area of the (ANEP), as well as participating in national and international committees for the management of space science and technology, such as the ESA Solar System Working Group and the Scientific Committee of the

International Space Science Institute The International Space Science Institute (ISSI) is an Institute of Advanced Studies based in Bern, Switzerland. The institute's work is interdisciplinary, focusing on the study of the Solar System, and encompasses planetary sciences, astrophysics ...

. In 2016 she participated as a scientific and technical researcher on the missions of the space probe ''

'' (ESA) to comet 67P, on ''

BepiColombo BepiColombo is a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to the planet Mercury. The mission comprises two satellites launched together: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) and ''Mio'' ...

'' (ESA-

JAXA The is the Japanese national air and space agency. Through the merger of three previously independent organizations, JAXA was formed on 1 October 2003. JAXA is responsible for research, technology development and launch of satellites into o ...

) for the exploration of Mercury, and on the ''

Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice, formerly JUICE) is an interplanetary spacecraft on its way to orbit and study three icy moons of Jupiter (planet), Jupiter: Ganymede (moon), Ganymede, Callisto (moon), Callisto, and Europa (moon), Europa ...

'' (ESA) to study Jupiter and the

Galilean moons The Galilean moons (), or Galilean satellites, are the four largest moons of Jupiter. They are, in descending-size order, Ganymede (moon), Ganymede, Callisto (moon), Callisto, Io (moon), Io, and Europa (moon), Europa. They are the most apparent m ...

. Likewise, she has been part of the scientific-technical definition teams of

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

-ESA space missions to the

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

system, and of an ESA mission to bring asteroidal material to Earth. She has published over 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and made more than 250 contributions to international conferences.

Books

* ''Titán'' (2010), CSIC, . ¿Qué sabemos de? series #10.

References

External links

Luisa María Lara López
at ''

The Conversation ''The Conversation'' is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery thriller film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who faces a moral dilemma when his recordings reveal a potential ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Lara, Luisa Maria 1966 births 20th-century Spanish scientists 21st-century Spanish physicists European Space Agency personnel Living people People from Alcalá la Real Rosetta mission Spanish astrophysicists Spanish women physicists University of Granada alumni Women astrophysicists 20th-century Spanish women 21st-century Spanish astronomers