The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research institute based in

Tucson, Arizona , "(at the) base of the black

ill ILL may refer to: * ''I Love Lucy'', a landmark American television sitcom * Illorsuit Heliport (location identifier: ILL), a heliport in Illorsuit, Greenland * Institut Laue–Langevin, an internationally financed scientific facility * Interlibrar ...

, nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive ...

, focusing on

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 the ...

. , its director is Dr.

Mark V. Sykes Mark may refer to: Currency * Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, the currency of Bosnia and Herzegovina * East German mark, the currency of the German Democratic Republic * Estonian mark, the currency of Estonia between 1918 and 1927 * Finn ...

. PSI, along with

Space Science Institute The Space Science Institute (SSI) in Boulder, Colorado, is a nonprofit, public-benefit corporation formed in 1992. Its purpose is to create and maintain an environment where scientific research and education programs can flourish in an integ ...

(SSI)

Southwest Research Institute Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is an independent and nonprofit applied research and development (R&D) organization. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, it provides contract research and develo ...

(SwRI), and

Eureka Scientific Eureka (often abbreviated as E!, or Σ!) is an intergovernmental organisation for research and development funding and coordination. Eureka is an open platform for international cooperation in innovation. Organisations and companies applying t ...

, were listed as 501(c)(3) organizations in the US in a special report by

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

in 2007, which facilitate

federal grant In the United States, federal grants are economic aid issued by the United States government out of the general federal revenue. A federal grant is an award of financial assistance from a federal agency to a recipient to carry out a public purp ...

applications of non-tenure-track

astronomers An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either obser ...

Description

Founded in 1972 by

William Kenneth Hartmann William Kenneth Hartmann (born June 6, 1939) is a noted planetary scientist, artist, author, and writer. He was the first to convince the scientific mainstream that the Earth had once been hit by a planet sized body (Theia), creating both the ...

, PSI is involved in many

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

missions, the study of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmos ...

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the Solar System#Inner solar system, inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic o ...

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 (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...

interplanetary 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 Syste ...

, the

formation of the Solar System The formation of the Solar System began about 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud. Most of the collapsing mass collected in the center, forming the Sun, while the rest flattened into a ...

extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

s, the

origin of life In biology, abiogenesis (from a- 'not' + Greek bios 'life' + genesis 'origin') or the origin of life is the natural process by which life has arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothes ...

, and other scientific topics. It actively participated in the ''Dawn'' mission, which explored

Vesta Vesta may refer to: Fiction and mythology * Vesta (mythology), Roman goddess of the hearth and home * Vesta (Marvel Comics), a Marvel Comics character * Sailor Vesta, a character in ''Sailor Moon'' Brands and products * Lada Vesta, a car from ...

between 2011 and 2012, and Ceres between 2015 and 2018. It managed the GRaND a Gamma Ray and Neutron Detector spectrometer, which mapped the surfaces of the two minor planets to determine how they were formed and evolved. PSI's

orbit@home orbit@home was a BOINC-based volunteer computing project of the Planetary Science Institute The Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit research institute based in Tucson, Arizona, focusing on planetary science. , its ...

was a

distributed computing A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

project through which the public can help in the search for

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU) ...

s. The institute is also involved in

science education Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process (the scientific method), some ...

through school programs, popular

science book A science book is a work of nonfiction, usually written by a scientist, researcher, or professor like Stephen Hawking (''A Brief History of Time''), or sometimes by a non-scientist such as Bill Bryson ('' A Short History of Nearly Everything''). ...

s and art.

Notable people

Aileen Yingst R. Aileen Yingst is an American geologist and senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute as well as an Investigator on the Perseverance rover's SHERLOC instrument for NASA. She has contributed to many projects including Mars Science L ...

, geologist and senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute

References

External links

* Research institutes in Arizona Solar System Planetary science Space science organizations 1972 establishments in Arizona Research institutes established in 1972 Organizations based in Tucson, Arizona {{Nonprofit-org-stub

Description

Notable people

See also

References

External links