Linda A. Morabito facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Linda Morabito
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Morabito pictured after her discovery of Io volcanism, in front of a model of the Voyager spacecraft at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is holding a print of the image that enabled her to make the discovery.
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| Born | November 21, 1953 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | University of Southern California |
| Known for | Discovering volcanism on Io |
| Children | 1 |
Linda A. Morabito (born November 21, 1953) is a famous astronomer. She is known for discovering active volcanoes on Io, one of Jupiter's moons. She made this amazing discovery on March 9, 1979. At the time, she was working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Linda Morabito was part of the team for the Voyager space mission. She was processing images from the Voyager 1 spacecraft. While looking at a picture of Io, she saw a huge cloud, about 270 kilometers (168 miles) tall. This cloud was coming from Io's surface and was caused by a volcano erupting! This was the very first time active volcanoes were found anywhere in space besides Earth. Many scientists think this was one of the biggest discoveries from JPL's space exploration programs. Today, Linda Morabito teaches astronomy as a professor at Victor Valley College. She also wrote a book about her life and discoveries called Parallel Universes, a Memoir from the Edges of Space and Time.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Linda Morabito was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her family moved to the United States in 1961. Even as a child, she felt like she was meant to be an astronomer. She was very smart and even skipped a year of elementary school. When she was in ninth grade, she wrote a school paper titled "My Job in the World: Astronomer." This showed how much she loved space and science from a young age.
Linda Morabito earned her degree in astronomy from the University of Southern California (USC) in 1974. She also studied computer science there. Before finishing her degree, she worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) during the summer. After graduating, she got a full-time job at JPL as an engineer.
Discovering Io's Volcanoes
In March 1979, while working at JPL, Linda Morabito made her incredible discovery. She was looking at pictures of Io taken by Voyager 1 for navigation purposes. She noticed something strange: a crescent-shaped cloud coming off the moon's edge.
Linda Morabito then worked to figure out what this mysterious cloud was. She came up with different ideas and tested them. Finally, she realized that the cloud was a giant plume of material erupting from Io's surface. It was a volcano! Her discovery was announced to the world just a few days later, on March 12, 1979. This changed how scientists thought about other planets and moons.
Later Career and Teaching
After her discovery, Linda Morabito continued to work in science and education. From 1997 to 2004, she worked at The Planetary Society. There, she helped create educational programs, especially for the Mars Global Surveyor mission. She also helped students get involved with the Mars Exploration Rover mission, which included the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars.
In 2007, she became an associate professor of Astronomy at Victor Valley College, where she still teaches today. She also worked as a Guest Investigator for the Viking mission to Mars in 1977. She helped students around the world learn to use radio telescopes for astronomy research. This work was done with NASA missions like the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Juno mission to Jupiter. Linda Morabito has been a popular astronomy speaker for over 30 years. She has also appeared in many science documentaries and was a regular guest on TV talk shows in Canada.
Personal Journey
Linda Morabito has shared her personal journey in her memoir, Parallel Universes, a Memoir from the Edges of Space and Time. In her book, she talks about overcoming difficult experiences from her childhood. She found help through a treatment called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Her book combines her personal story with her amazing scientific discoveries at NASA.
In 2008, Linda Morabito married Major David Meyer, who is also an astronomy professor. She has one son, Ryan Hyder, and three grandchildren.
Honors and Awards
Linda Morabito has received many awards for her important work:
- She received the NASA Group Achievement Award multiple times for her work on the Voyager mission, including for flight operations, system design, and ephemeris development.
- NASA gave her an Individual Certificate of Appreciation. This was for her great contributions to NASA's mission, especially for improving image processing and discovering the volcanoes on Io.
- Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine recognized her for her special contributions to aerospace.
- The International Astronomical Union honored her by naming an asteroid after her: 3106 Morabito. This was to celebrate her discovery of volcanic activity on Io.
See also
In Spanish: Linda A. Morabito para niños
