Erin Lee Ryan

At NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), I look for evidence of giant planet migration in our solar system. To find evidence of giant planet migration, I am studying the colors of asteroids in a very specific region of space: the Hilda asteroid group. Hilda asteroids are found at 4 astronomical units and orbit the Sun 3 times for every 2 orbits Jupiter completes. Our work concentrates primarily on looking for very red objects which look similar to asteroids found near Pluto's orbit and beyond which may have been tossed into the inner solar system about 4 billion years ago. I'm carrying on this work with Keith Noll at GSFC and Charles Woodward at the Minnesota Institute for Astrophysics.

Prior to graduate school I used to work for the Spitzer Space Telescope where I helped other astronomers get the best data possible for their various science projects.