9 scientists who are changing the way we view space

In August 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft began orbiting the comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko and transmitting images to Earth of the dusty space snowball that were more detailed than anything we’d ever seen.

Ultimately, Rosetta will give scientists a better idea of what comets are made of and how they work, as well as provide insights into the chemical makeup of the solar system. As the Rosetta flight director, Andrea Accomazzo helped design the mission and led the team that guided it toward 67P. Now he’s working with the European Space Agency on their interplanetary missions to Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter.

Accomazzo is an ESA spacecraft-operations manager at Venus Express and the flight director of the Rosetta mission.

We all know that the sun is a gigantic nuclear furnace, but until now we didn’t know exactly how it produces energy. To figure it out, scientists have been tracking pp neutrinos — tiny particles released when two protons fuse together deep inside the sun, as lead author Andrea Pocar presented in a recent paper on the Borexino experiment. Through the experiment, scientists are analyzing the elusive particles by blocking out all other noise around a vat of material that emits light when excited by a neutrino.

Because these neutrinos are proof that protons are fusing within the sun, finally observing them helps confirm our theories about how the sun creates energy using fusion — and what’s going on inside while that happens.

Pocar is an associate professor in the department of physics at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

As the first Canadian to walk in space, aboard Expedition 34/35 on the International Space Station, Chris Hadfield gained international fame after his cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” — which he recorded on the ISS — went viral, garnering over 25 million views.

In addition to his accomplishments as an astronaut, Hadfield is the author of two New York Times best-selling books, “An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth” and “You Are Here.” Hadfield continues to be an active presence on Twitter, Facebook, and Periscope, and he has recently hosted live chats explaining space exploration.

Hadfield is a former Canadian Space Agency astronaut.

As a Hubble Fellow, Emily Levesque works to improve our understanding of massive stars by building models of galaxies and analyzing wavelength data. Her breakthroughs in understanding these immense stellar bodies will allow researchers to take advantage of advancements in space technology. In the past few years, Levesque and her team updated models of star-forming galaxies, focusing on how they are affected by rotation.

Levesque is a Hubble Fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder.