Philip D. Nicholson (born 1951) is an Australian-born professor of astronomy at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

in the

Astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

department specialising in

Planetary Science 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 ...

s. He was editor-in-chief of the journal ''

Icarus In Greek mythology, Icarus (; , ) was the son of the master craftsman Daedalus, the architect of the labyrinth of Crete. After Theseus, king of Athens and enemy of King Minos, escaped from the labyrinth, Minos suspected that Icarus and Daedalu ...

'' between 1998 and 2018.

Career

Nicholson received his Ph.D. from

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

in 1979. Nicholson's research centers on two main areas: orbital dynamics in planetary ring systems and infrared observational studies of planets, their satellites, and their rings. His work has included studies of the ring systems of Saturn, Uranus, 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 ...

via

Voyager Voyager may refer to: Computing and communications * LG Voyager, a mobile phone model manufactured by LG Electronics * NCR Voyager, a computer platform produced by NCR Corporation * Voyager (computer worm), a computer worm affecting Oracle ...

observations and ground-based stellar occultations; Earth-based observations with the 5-meter

Hale Telescope The Hale Telescope is a , 3.3 reflecting telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, US, named after astronomer George Ellery Hale. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1928, he orchestrated the planning, de ...

Palomar Observatory The Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in the Palomar Mountains of San Diego County, California, United States. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...

of several small moons of

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 ...

and Saturn discovered by the Voyager spacecraft; dynamical investigations of the planetary system around the pulsar PSR 1257 + 12, and of the rotational evolution of natural satellites; and studies of the

zodiacal dust The interplanetary dust cloud, or zodiacal cloud (as the source of the zodiacal light), consists of cosmic dust (small particles floating in outer space) that pervades the space between planets within planetary systems, such as the Solar System ...

bands discovered by the

Infrared Astronomical Satellite The Infrared Astronomical Satellite ( Dutch: ''Infrarood Astronomische Satelliet'') (IRAS) was the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths. Launched on 25 January 1983, its mission lasted ten mo ...

in 1983. Together with colleagues in Canada and at Harvard, he has been involved in the discovery of numerous outer satellites of

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 ( ...

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 ...

and

. Nicholson was a member of the Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer science team on the NASA/ESA ''

Cassini–Huygens ''Cassini–Huygens'' ( ), commonly called ''Cassini'', was a space research, space-research mission by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) to send a space probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, i ...

'' mission to Saturn, and was the leader of a team of Cornell and Caltech astronomers studying the impact of

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 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 surrounding the nucleus, an ...

into Jupiter in July 1994 using the Hale Telescope. He has served on the Committees on Planetary and Lunar Exploration and on Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Research Council, time assignment committees for the

Kuiper Airborne Observatory The Gerard P. Kuiper Airborne Observatory (KAO) was a national facility operated by NASA to support research in infrared astronomy. The observation platform was a highly modified Lockheed C-141A Starlifter jet transport aircraft (s/n: 6110, regis ...

and

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

, and scientific advisory committees for

Arecibo Arecibo (; ) is a Arecibo barrio-pueblo, city and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado, Puerto Rico, Utuado and Ciales, Puerto Rico, Ciale ...

and IPAC. He has coauthored review articles on planetary ring dynamics and on the Uranian and Neptunian ring systems.

Honors

The inner

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

asteroid

7220 Philnicholson 7 (seven) is the natural number following 6 and preceding 8. It is the only prime number preceding a cube. As an early prime number in the series of positive integers, the number seven has symbolic associations in religion, mythology, supers ...

, discovered by

Edward Bowell Edward L. G. "Ted" Bowell (born 1943 in London, died August 21 2023 in Flagstaff, Arizona), was an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the University of Paris. He was principal invest ...

Anderson Mesa Anderson Mesa (Navajo language, Navajo: Hosh Dikʼání) is approximately five mesas long, located 20 miles southeast of Flagstaff, Arizona, United States, east of Lake Mary (Arizona), Lake Mary and north of Mormon Lake, in Coconino County, Arizo ...

in 1981, was named in his honor. The official naming citation was published on 5 October 1998 (). Nicholson won the

Harold Masursky Award The Harold Masursky Award for Meritorious Service to Planetary Science, usually called the Masursky Award, is awarded annually by the Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society. The award for Meritorious Service to Pl ...

in 2019, "for meritorious service to planetary science" in his role as editor-in-chief of ''Icarus''. He was elected a Legacy Fellow of 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 2020.

References

External links

Phil Nicholson's web page at Cornell University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicholson, Phil 1951 births Living people 20th-century Australian astronomers Discoverers of trans-Neptunian objects Planetary scientists Cornell University faculty Fellows of the American Astronomical Society 21st-century Australian astronomers