Astronomy teacher worked on Saturn Mission
Every week, astronomy instructor Eric Wegryn rides his motorcycle to Ohlone College to do what he loves best, teaching.
Wegryn also teaches at West Valley College in Saratoga and at the Exploratorium Science Museum in San Francisco. Did I also mention that he is a scientist for NASA who worked intimately on the former Mars Pathfinder Mission and on the more recent Cassini Mission to Saturn and it's moon Titan? The later project to Saturn actually landed a satellite a little over two weeks ago, called the Huygens Probe, onto Titan taking unexpected pictures from its surface. Wegryn's duties with NASA act as his full-time job. Teaching is an additional task he takes on in order to fulfill his passion.
Since early childhood Wegryn had his heart set in the stars. He witnessed his first launching of the Space Shuttle and other rocket takeoff s with his parents at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
This inspired Wegryn to want to join the Air Force, but not having the eyesight to fly fighter jets, he did what was next best; he studied aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan. Graduating in 1989, Wegryn worked for several years for the Space Shuttle Program as a Guidance, Navigation and Control Engineer. Soon after, the excitement of his job wore off.
"After several years of launching space shuttles, which you might think it's really exciting, but it actually involved a lot of sitting in a cubicle, and staring at a computer," said Wegryn. He went back to school to make a switch from engineering to science, starting at the University of Indiana, then to the University of Arizona to get his Ph.D. in planetary sciences.
As a graduate student, Wegryn helped build the camera for NASA' s Huygens Probe on a task that took two years (1995-96) of calibration and testing to complete. On October of 1997, Wegryn watched his work lift off into space aboard the Titan IV rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a launch that left him with a sense of accomplishment and awe. "I was fortunate to watch the pre-dawn launch," said Wegryn. "The Titan IV is a huge rocket, even from 10 kilometers away it shakes the ground!"
Following Cassini, Wegryn worked on the Mars Pathfinder Mission, using the data sent back from Mars in 1997 to complete his doctoral research for his thesis.
His thesis consisted of a detailed study of Mars' atmosphere using Pathfinder's camera. The research showed that there were dust particles so fine, as fine as cigarette smoke that may prove to be a headache for future satellite or astronaut missions to Mars according to Wegryn. The Pathfinder also took standard measurements of temperature, and wind speed and chemical composition of Martian rocks taken by Pathfinder's solar powered Rover. Later missions called Spirit and Opportunity took rock samples that conclusively proved for the first time that rocks on Mars were formed in the presence of water, this according to the Mars Exploration Rover Mission website. Finishing his graduate work, Wegryn received a PHD from the University of Arizona in 2000.
After receiving his doctorates, Wegryn moved to the Bay Area for his love of its beauty and diverse population. Here, Wegryn was offered a job to work for the SET! (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute in Mountain View, which in turn contracted him out to NASA's Ames Research Center, to work on the very project he helped build while working on his doctorates in Arizona; the Cassini-Huygens program. SET! is a nonprofit organization dedicated to finding extra-terrestrial life in outer space. Although the Institute has looked for other intelligent life forms by scanning the sky for advanced civilization's radio signals, Wegryn is limited to looking for simple life form research as a Research Associate for the Cassini VIMS (Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer Instrument) Team. "That's the funny point. I am not looking for little green men," but "organic molecules or compounds that could be the starting point for life," said Wegryn.
Wegryn followed the Cassini satellite move towards Saturn from NASA's Bay Area location. On January 14, Wegryn watched the Huygens probe drop through the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan. To his and other NASA scientists' surprise, the probe, which was not designed to survive the landing, landed safely and took a picture with the very camera Wegryn help build. DISR scientist Charles See said, "I think the biggest surprise is that we survived the landing..."
Today, Wegryn continues to follow the Cassini Satellite, continually gather more valuable information as it passes by Saturn's other moons. Updates of this information is constantly updated on the Exploratoruim's website. The Cassini satellite will heat up "as it descends into Saturn's atmosphere, and eventually melt and even vaporize; as did the Galileo probe and orbiter on Jupiter." It's final demise will gather atmospheric readings before vaporizing into destruction.
After four years of studying engineering, and seven additional years of his PHD research, Wegryn hopes to do more than just apply his knowledge to the field he is working in. "I made a conscious choice in my career not to go into strict research science 100 percent, and not to go into teaching 100 percent, but to try to balance the two," said Wegryn. Although this has proved challenging, Wegryn has reached a balance and hopes to pass on his knowledge to other students and teachers of Astronomy in an effort to achieve something greater than himself. "I learned in graduate school, that there wasn't any point in learning, unless I passed it on at some point. That's why I find teaching so rewarding, to help other people enlarge their understanding of their place in the universe, just like I' ve learned along the way." At the Exploratorium Museum, Wegryn involved himself with their Teacher Institute Program, which trains high school and middle school teachers from around California and the rest of country, to become better scientist. He also acted as the Museum's Public Broadcaster to update listeners of the Cassini-Huygens mission and other planetary exploration shows. In 2004, Scientific American awarded the museum for having the year's the Best Science Web-Cast display. For more information on the Cassini-Huygens program, or to contact Dr. Wegryn, go to www.exploratorium.edu.