Patrick Michel (born 25 February 1970 in

Saint-Tropez Saint-Tropez ( , ; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Var (department), Var departments of France, department and the regions of France, region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Southern France. It is west of Nice and east of Marseille, o ...

, France) is a French

planetary scientist Planetary science (or more rarely, planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), celestial bodies (such as moons, asteroids, comets) and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes of their ...

, Senior Researcher at CNRS (

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

), member of the team TOP (Theories and Observations in Planetology) of the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (, , CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 staff, including 11,137 tenured researchers, 13,415 eng ...

and Université Côte d'Azur Lagrange Laboratory at the

Côte d'Azur Observatory The Côte d'Azur Observatory (, , OCA) is a network of astronomical observatories throughout southern France. It originated in 1988 with the merger of two observatories: # Nice Observatory # Centre de recherches en géodynamique et astrométrie ...

Nice Nice ( ; ) is a city in and the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative city limits, with a population of nearly one million University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

Studies

Michel began his advanced education with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and Space Techniques in 1993 where after he moved to the study of asteroids. He received his PhD in 1997 for a thesis titled "Dynamical evolution of Near-Earth Asteroids".

Academic topics

He is specialist of the physical properties and the collisional and dynamical evolution of asteroids. His researches focus on the collisional processes between asteroids, the origin of

near-Earth objects A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit aro ...

binary asteroids A binary asteroid is a system of two asteroids orbiting their common barycenter. The binary nature of 243 Ida was discovered when the Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid in 1993. Since then numerous binary asteroids and several triple ast ...

, their physical properties, their response to various processes (impacts, tidal encounters, shaking) as a function of their internal and surface properties, and the risks of impacts with the Earth. His results have been the subject of more than 200 publications in refereed international journals, and have been featured on the covers of both

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

Participations to space missions and mission concepts

Michel is deeply involved in several space missions and mission concepts devoted to the investigation of small bodies and

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

hazard.

NEOMAP committee and Don Quijote mission concept

He belongs to the Near-Earth Object Mission Advisory Panel (NEOMAP) mandated by

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) to recommend space missions devoted to a better understanding of the impact threat. In 2004, the committee recommends the

Don Quijote Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *Don (river), a river in European Russia * Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name * Don, Benin, a town in Benin * Don, Dang, a village and hill station in Dang district, G ...

mission concept, which consists in making a test of asteroid deflection by using the technique of an artificial impactor. This mission was studied at ESA until 2007.

AIDA: DART and Hera

He is leading the European science team of

AIDA ''Aida'' (or ''Aïda'', ) is a tragic opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 De ...

, for ''Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment'', an international space cooperation inspired by Don Quichotte, a collaboration between

ESA The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member 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 in the context of European ...

and

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 ...

aimed at deflecting the secondary of the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos using a

kinetic Kinetic (Ancient Greek: κίνησις “kinesis”, movement or to move) may refer to: * Kinetic theory, describing a gas as particles in random motion * Kinetic energy, the energy of an object that it possesses due to its motion Art and ente ...

impactor. AIDA will go into Phase A study at ESA and NASA in February 2015.

Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx

He is a co-I on both the

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 ...

Hayabusa2 is an asteroid sample-return mission operated by the Japanese state space agency JAXA. It is a successor to the ''Hayabusa'' mission, which returned asteroid samples for the first time in June 2010. ''Hayabusa2'' was launched on 3 December 2 ...

and NASA

OSIRIS-REx OSIRIS-REx was a NASA asteroid-study and sample-return mission that visited and collected samples from 101955 Bennu, a C-type asteroid, carbonaceous near-Earth object, near-Earth asteroid. The material, returned in September 2023, is expected ...

sample return missions to a primitive near-Earth asteroid. Hayabusa2 was launched successfully on December 3, 2014 and OSIRIS-REx will be launched in September 2016.

MMX

Together with Dr

Stephan Ulamec Stephan Ulamec is an Austrian Geophysics, geophysicist, born in Salzburg on January 27, 1966, with more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals and several participations in space missions and payloads operated by diverse space agencies. He is ...

, they are the co-Principal Investigators of IDEFIX©, the

rover Rover may refer to: People Name * Constance Rover (1910–2005), English historian * Jolanda de Rover (born 1963), Dutch swimmer * Rover Thomas (c. 1920–1998), Indigenous Australian artist Stage name * Rover (musician), French singer-songw ...

developed in partnership by

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

and DLR for the

MMX mission to return samples from Phobos, a moon of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

, which will be launched in 2026 to arrive on Phobos in 2029 and return to Earth in 2031, with a deployment of the rover to perform in-situ surface analyses in 2028.

MarcoPolo-R

He was a co-chair of the science study team of the MarcoPolo-R

sample return mission A sample-return mission is a spacecraft mission to collect and return samples from an extraterrestrial location to Earth for analysis. Sample-return missions may bring back merely atoms and molecules or a deposit of complex compounds such as lo ...

during the assessment study phase (2011-2013) at the ESA.

Participations to activities financed by the European Commission

NEOShield and NEOShield-2

He is also responsible of the Work Package on numerical simulations of collisions and asteroid deflection by a kinetic impactor in the European Consortiums NEOShield and NEOShield-2 funded, respectively, by the FP7 and the Horizon2020 framework programmes (2012-2017).

NEO-MAPP

He is the coordinator of the NEO-MAPP project, also under the Horizon2020 framework programme (2020-2023).

Roles in French and international organisations

He has wide involvement in international organisations and belongs to the Science Program Committee of

(French space agency). He has been elected Secretary of the Division 3 (Planetary Science) of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

(IAU) in 2009-2012. He also belongs to the Action Team 14 (AT14) of the

COPUOS The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) is a United Nations committee whose main task is to review and foster international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, as well as to consider legal issues a ...

(for ''Committee On the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space'') at the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

aimed at recommending actions and an international organisation to deal with the asteroid impact threat and to the Steering Committee of the International Asteroid Warning Network (

IAWN The United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) is a United Nations committee whose main task is to review and foster international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, as well as to consider legal issues a ...

) recommended by AT14. In 2023, he was elected a Corresponding Member of the

International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...

. In 2024, he was elected to the Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), a NASA committee. The SBAG's aim is to identify scientific priorities and opportunities for the exploration of asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, small satellites, and Trans-Neptunian Objects. Until 2024 he was the leader of his planetology team within the

Joseph-Louis Lagrange Joseph-Louis Lagrange (born Giuseppe Luigi Lagrangialead editor Lead () is a chemical element; it has symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cut, lea ...

of the book ''Asteroids IV'' published in 2015 by the

University of Arizona Press The University of Arizona Press, a publishing house founded in 1959 as a department of the University of Arizona, is a nonprofit publisher of scholarly and regional books. As a delegate of the University of Arizona to the larger world, the Press p ...

. In 2023, he is also the author in French of an outreach science book called "''A la rencontre des astéroïdes : missions spatiales et défense de la planète''" that can be translated into "''Encountering asteroids: space missions and defending the planet''".

Awards

In 2006 he received the "Young Researcher" prize from the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics. In 2012, he was awarded the

Carl Sagan Medal The Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science is an award established by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society to recognize and honor outstanding communication by an active plane ...

from the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

. In 2013 he was awarded the International Prize Paolo Farinella in Planetary Science from the

University of Pisa The University of Pisa (, UniPi) is a public university, public research university in Pisa, Italy. Founded in 1343, it is one of the oldest universities in Europe. Together with Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and Sant'Anna School of Advanced S ...

in recognition of his work on the collisional process. Asteroid (7561) PatrickMichel was named in his honour by the

(IAU).

References

External links

* (in French and in English
Patrick Michel's page on his observatory website

Researchgate.net profile page of Patrick Michel
*
TOP Team

NEOMAP Committee, the NEO Mission Advisory Panel (ESA web site)
*
Patrick Michel, astrophysicien (audio)
Ciel et Espace radio podcasts, ''un métier, une passion'', Patrick Michel * (in French
interview d'un chercheur du laboratoire lagrange (Patrick Michel) sur la RTS (CNRS Côte d'Azur web site)
* (in French
Entretien avec Patrick Michel investigateur principal de la mission Hera (ESA web site)

Simulation of asteroid spin creating binary asteroids(ESA web site)

Patrick Michel: Where do asteroids come from? on ESA website

Presentation by Patrick Michel (IAC2022, plenary panel on planetary defence) on Vimeo web site

NEO Working Group, some new knowledge regarding NEOs, current projects and perspectives (IAU web site)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Michel, Patrick 1970 births Living people European Space Agency personnel French planetary scientists