NMSU astronomy student wins $100,000 NASA grant

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KVIA) -- Out of more than 1,400 applicants, NMSU Ph.D. student Aman Priyadarshi Kumar earned the $100,000 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science (FINESST) Award.

Kumar is one of only 108 winners and the way Kumar found out was by surprise. Kumar said this grant was something grad students know about but never actually win and he was even considering his work would get rejected.

"In my undergrad I heard grad students in my group applying for FINESST and they talked about it as if it was some mythical creature, you don't know if it even exists," Kumar said. "It was like, maybe I'll get it, Maybe I won't it's my first attempt. I was ready to write a second one as soon as I get a rejection."

"I was so happy I didn't tell anybody for like 10, 15 minutes because I was like, I need to sit here with this and understand what we have achieved."

Kumar's research project, titled "Solar Tornadoes Unleashed: The Twisting Forces Behind Plasma Transport," focuses on how solar tornadoes form and the energy effect their movement has on the sun.

Through his research, Kumar wants to understand what the movement of these Solar Tornadoes looks like and how they transfer energy.

"We want to understand is how the the properties," Kumar said. "What speeds they are moving at, what are their size scales, how are they evolving into solar tornadoes and see how energy and mass is transported through solar tornadoes."

Another impact of the solar tornadoes Kumar wants to investigate is the effect on temperature of the Sun's atmosphere and attempt to find an answer to what's called the Coronal Heating Problem that has remained unsolved for 70 years according to NASA.

"The sun's atmosphere, when you go through the chromosphere, which is a layer above the photosphere, the surface, the temperatures increase by a thousand degree," Kumar said. "When you go higher temperatures can rise from tens to hundreds and thousands of millions of Kelvin. If we can solve that question, that that would be great."

The connection between solar tornadoes and solar flares is another part of Kumar's research, both the size which he said can reach 13 to 15 times the size of Earth but also direct impact on our planet which can be studied through magnetism.

"Understanding magnetism on the sun, solar tornadoes and solar flares on the sun helps us predict space weather which is very important for the general public because this can affect satellites power," Kumar said. "Huge infrastructures, power grids, astronauts in space, Wi-Fi, phones, computers, everything. If a geomagnetic storm were to hit Earth, then all of this could vanish in a second."

Kumar said the funding will go towards furthering his research, specifically for travel in his case since the telescope used at NMSU cannot be used anymore after a mercury leak.

"You spend money doing a lot of stuff, you have to travel to make collaborations and meet people, experts," Kumar said. "A lot of money gets spent is publication itself. We have to always keep money aside to be able to publish it. Any major journal would cost between $2,000 to $4,000 to publish an article."

While Kumar says there are expenses to his research he says wants to make the price to make his findings free to the public.