I can't say that I've been involved in 'solving' any problems. Honestly, several items of my work have resulted in observations that question what we thought we knew about energetic particles from the Sun. In one case we thought there were two different kinds of solar energetic particle events, but our observations have shown that it isn't as clear cut as that and there is probably mixing. How and when that mixing occurs is something we're still trying to figure out.

In another case it was believed that you could only see a certain type of solar energetic particle event if the spacecraft was in a fairly narrow range of positions relative to where the event came from on the Sun. But, we saw these kinds of event simultaneously at spacecraft that were spread wide apart. Again, we're still trying to figure out how and when that happens.

Part of the fun of science is not only solving puzzles, but finding out new information that brings up new puzzles, or new aspects to things you thought you knew.

That's a very interesting question and it depends on how you define "problem solving" really. In some ways, our entire job is problem solving - finding why something doesn't work, whether its a piece of computer code or lab equipment and figuring out ways to make it work properly. Alternatively, as Christina talk about above, solving the big questions in the universe is far less common. Only a few people are really lucky enough to have those kinds of break throughs. Personally I think one of my biggest strengths (and something I think is a strength of most scientists) is problem solving. Going through grad school teaches you how to answer questions effectively and smartly (amongst other things) and really teaches you how to learn new things quickly. I also think it helps you see the bigger picture, and not be focused on one small area - you have to have a good idea of the bigger context or what you're doing might not make sense. All of this is really helpful in problem solving in general, whether at work or in life.

Hello Yazan!

Mostly my research aims to increase our understanding of what causes various space weather phenomena. For example, right now I am studying a type of electromagnetic wave that can kick the highest energy electrons out of the Earth's radiation belts during geomagnetic storms. While I use what people would call "problem solving skills" to do this work, the research itself is trying gather new information about these waves, and answer scientific questions about what causes them, instead of trying to solve a specific problem.

However, I few years ago, I did help solve a problem with a scientific instrument on a NASA satellite mission called Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS). Before MMS was launched, I did computer simulations of the Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) for the MMS mission to develop the tables of voltages used to operate the instrument. Several months after launch, the EDI on one of the MMS spacecraft suddenly started shutting down right after it was powered on. Engineers figured out that there was some kind of electric short that only happened when the voltages exceeded a certain level. Although we couldn't go into space to physically fix the instrument, we could work around the problem. I ran a lot more simulations of the EDI to test out lower voltages and made brand new tables for operating the instrument. When the new tables were transmitted to the spacecraft, they were able to successfully power the instrument back on and start gathering new data.