Natalie Batalha facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Natalie Batalha
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Natalie Batalha
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| Born | May 14, 1966 California, U.S.
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| Alma mater | UC Santa Cruz (Ph.D.) University of California, Berkeley (S.B.) |
| Known for | Kepler Mission |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy Exoplanets |
| Institutions | UC Santa Cruz |
Natalie M. Batalha (born 1966) is a professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. She is a leading expert in the search for planets outside our Solar System, called exoplanets. She played a huge role in the Kepler Mission, which was the first space telescope designed to find Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Before joining UC Santa Cruz, she was a research astronomer at NASA Ames Research Center.
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About Natalie Batalha
Natalie Batalha grew up in California. She first studied business at the University of California, Berkeley. But she soon switched to physics after learning how math could explain everyday things. For example, she learned why soap bubbles and oily puddles show rainbow colors. This is called thin-film interference.
During her college years, she studied stars that are like our Sun. She used a method called stellar spectroscopy to learn about them. After getting her first degree in physics, she earned her Ph.D. in astrophysics from UC Santa Cruz. She also did research in Brazil.
Natalie Batalha's daughter, Natasha Batalha, is also an astronomer. They work together on projects to find and study exoplanets. They use data from the powerful James Webb Space Telescope.
Discovering Distant Worlds
Natalie Batalha joined the Kepler Mission science team in 1997. She helped design the mission and secure its funding. As one of the main scientists, she helped choose the more than 150,000 stars that the Kepler telescope would watch.
The Kepler telescope found planets by looking for tiny dips in a star's brightness. These dips happen when a planet passes in front of its star, blocking some of its light. This method is called transit photometry. Batalha worked closely with her team to find real planets from all the data Kepler collected.
In 2011, she led the team that confirmed the discovery of Kepler 10b. This was a very important moment. Kepler 10b was the first confirmed rocky planet found outside our own Solar System.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope
In 2017, Natalie Batalha's project was chosen for a special program on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Her team was given the most observation time for their project. They used this time during the first five months of the telescope's operation.
After the JWST launched in 2021, Batalha and her team made another big discovery. They found clear proof of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. This planet is called WASP-39b. It's about the size of Saturn and orbits very close to a star about 700 light-years away.
In 2023, Batalha's team used the JWST again. They found water vapor in the atmosphere of another planet, WASP-18b. They also made a temperature map of this planet. This was done by watching the planet as it moved behind and then reappeared from its star.
Leading Astrobiology Research
Natalie Batalha also leads the UC Santa Cruz Astrobiology Initiative. This program brings together scientists from different fields. They work together to study how life began, how it changed, and where it might exist in the universe.
Awards and Honors
Natalie Batalha has received many important awards for her work:
- In 2011, NASA gave her the NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal. This was for her amazing leadership of the Kepler Science Team.
- In 2017, she was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World.
- In the same year, she won the Smithsonian Magazine's American Ingenuity Award in Physical Sciences.
- In 2019, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Uppsala in Sweden.
- She was also elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. In 2020, she became a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.
