Reta F. Beebe (born October 10, 1936 in Baca County, Colorado) is an American

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

, and popularizer of

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 ...

. She is an expert on the planets

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 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 the author of ''Jupiter: The Giant Planet''. She is a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

in the Astronomy Department at

New Mexico State University New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public, land-grant, research university in Las Cruces, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1888, it is the state's oldest public institution of higher education, and was the original land-g ...

and 2010 winner of the

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 ...

Exceptional Public Service medal.Associated Press (15 September 2010
"NASA Medal Awarded to NMSU Astronomer"
''Alubuquerque Journal'' Beebe spent many years helping to plan and manage NASA missions, including the

Voyager program The Voyager program is an American scientific program that employs two interstellar probes, ''Voyager 1'' and ''Voyager 2''. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment to explore the two gas giants Jupiter ...

missions to the giant planets. Her specific research interest was the atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn,

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 ...

. She designed experiments to the study and measure the clouds and winds of the giant planets. She worked interpreting the

Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

and Cassini data and used the

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 ...

to obtain additional atmospheric data on Jupiter and Saturn. She was a member of the Shoemaker/Levy team at the

Space Telescope Science Institute The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), science operations and mission operations center for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and science operations center for the ...

in 1994 when the comet struck Jupiter. Formerly, she chaired the Committee for Planetary and Lunar Exploration (COMPLEX), which is the principal space committee of the

United States National Research Council The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), also known as the National Academies, is a congressionally chartered organization that serves as the collective scientific national academy of the United States. The name i ...

."Year 2003 DPS Prize Recipients"
/ref> More recently she was involved with organizing the data about the giant planets in NASA's

Planetary Data System The Planetary Data System (PDS) is a distributed data system that NASA uses to archive data collected by Solar System missions. The PDS is an active archive that makes available well documented, peer reviewed planetary data to the research commun ...

. She is in charge of the Atmospheres Discipline Node of that program. Her planetary data archiving skills have also been employed by 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 ...

. She serves on the steering committee of the International Planetary Data Alliance.

Awards

* 1989 Westhafer Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, or Creative Activity from New Mexico State University"NMSU astronomer receives top public service medal from NASA"
New Mexico State University News Center * 1998 Dennis W. Darnall Faculty Achievement Award from New Mexico State University * 2003 Harold Masursky Award from the Division for Planetary Sciences 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 ...

* 2010 NASA Exceptional Public Service medal * 2020 Elected a Legacy Fellow of the

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Beebe, Reta 1936 births Living people 20th-century American astronomers 20th-century American women scientists American women astronomers American planetary scientists American women planetary scientists Astrochemists New Mexico State University faculty American nature writers Fellows of the American Astronomical Society American women academics 21st-century American women