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Nicolas Dauphas

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Nicolas Dauphas is a French-American planetary scientist and isotope geochemist. He is professor of geochemistry and cosmochemistry at the University of Chicago.[1] His research focuses on isotope geochemistry and cosmochemistry.[2] He studies the origin and evolution of planets and other objects in the solar system by analyzing the natural distributions of elements and their isotopes using mass spectrometers.[3]

Career

Born on December 10, 1975, in Nantes, Brittany, France, Dauphas received a B.Sc. degree from École Nationale Supérieure de Géologie in Nancy, France in 1998. He obtained a Ph.D. in geochemistry and cosmochemistry from Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine in 2002, working with Bernard Marty and Laurie Reisberg.[4] He then completed his postdoctoral research at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History from 2002 to 2004, before joining the faculty at the University of Chicago in 2004. In 2007, he was awarded the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship, given to nationwide, most promising early-career scientists and engineers.[5]

Dauphas was part of the preliminary examination team for JAXA's Hayabusa2 mission,[6] which returned a fragment of Ryugu carbonaceous asteroid to Earth for scientific research. He was selected as a member of the Mars Sample Return Campaign Science Group in 2022.[7]

Research activities

By analyzing the isotopic compositions of stable and radiogenic nuclides in meteorites, Dauphas investigates the timing and processes that lead to the formation of Solar System bodies and the establishment of habitable conditions on Earth and Mars. He used iron isotopes to study how the iron biogeochemical cycle of the Earth changed through time.[8] He established that Mars was formed rapidly, within the first 2~4 million years of the birth of the Solar System, which explains the much smaller size of Mars compared to Earth and Venus.[9] He first identified the mineralogical carrier of the 54Cr isotopic anomalies in meteorites as Cr-rich nano-sized spinels from supernovae.[10] He constrained the nature of Earth’s accreting materials through time, using a novel approach that relies on the different affinities of elements with Earth's core, and showed that the materials formed Earth are from an isotopically homogeneous reservoir.[11]

References

  1. ^ "Geophysical Sciences". geosci.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  2. ^ "Geophysical Sciences". geosci.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  3. ^ "About Us | originslab.uchicago.edu". originslab.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  4. ^ Marty, Bernard (2005-08-30). "2005 Nier Prize for Nicolas Dauphas". Meteoritics & Planetary Science. 40 (S8): A7–A8. doi:10.1111/j.1945-5100.2005.tb00419.x. S2CID 128748675.
  5. ^ "Dauphas, Nicolas". The David and Lucile Packard Foundation. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  6. ^ "Asteroid Samples Reveal Long Journey through the Solar System". Sky & Telescope. 2022-10-24. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  7. ^ Agle, DC. "NASA, Partner Establish New Research Group for Mars Sample Return Program". NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Retrieved 2022-06-14.
  8. ^ Hecht, Jeff. "Primordial rocks may hold the signature of life". New Scientist. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  9. ^ Brandon, Alan (2011-05-25). "Building a planet in record time". Nature. 473 (7348): 460–461. doi:10.1038/473460a. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 21614071. S2CID 205064708.
  10. ^ "PSRD: Supernova Confetti in Meteorites". www.psrd.hawaii.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-15.
  11. ^ Carlson, Richard W. (2017-01-16). "Earth's building blocks". Nature. 541 (7638): 468–469. doi:10.1038/541468a. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 28128233. S2CID 4386036.