The Greenbelt, Maryland-based NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) recently awarded the highest award it can bestow in space sciences – the 46th Annual John C. Lindsay Memorial Award – to planetary scientist Dr. F. Michael Flasar.
He received the award for the incredible contributions he and his team brought to understanding the atmosphere surrounding Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Flasar is the principal investigator of the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) aboard the NASA Cassini orbiter around the gas giant.
Using the tool's ability to provide in-depth data on the surface, internal structure and atmosphere of a planet or moon, the expert was able to determine, for example, that most of Titan's atmosphere is in fact rotating 20 times faster than the celestial body itself.
Flasar, who is today one of the greatest authorities on the atmosphere of Titan, is now studying wind patterns high above the moon's surface. These researches could help investigators determine how season changes affect the atmosphere.
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