Hi Rachel,

There are a lot of topics in the space sciences where we expect to make significant advancements in the future. Studying the planet Mars will probably continue to be a topic of great interest, as NASA is getting ready to launch a new Mars probe later this year called the Mars Atmosphere and Voltatile Evolution (MAVEN). MAVEN has the goal of understanding the atmosphere of Mars and what happened to the water on Mars. The New Horizons mission will be our first space probe to visit Pluto when it arrives in 2015. The Juno mission to Jupiter should arrive there in 2016, providing new opportunities to study this planet. Of course, understanding the Earth's space weather and how it is affected by the Sun continues to be an important topic of study. NASA is planning to launch the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS) in the fall of 2014 to help us understand the Earth's magnetosphere. I am involved in testing the Electron Drift Instrument (EDI) for MMS. I have a computer simulation of the EDI running right now to help us improve its operation over the versions of this instrument that were previously flown on another satellite mission called Cluster. These are just a few examples of things that NASA is planning for the future - there are many others!

When I am not doing research in the space sciences, I enjoy reading and going to the science fiction book group that meets nearby every month. Orchids are one of my favorite flowers and I just helped set up and judge an orchid show last weekend. I like watching movies and have also volunteered for a local film festival.

Kris

Another interesting field in solar physics is solar seismology, which is observing the way sound waves bounce around in the Sun's interior to try and determine things about the Sun's structure and about the formation of the waves. There are many more examples of fascinating solar physics topics.

One choice scientists in this field make is whether they would like to work on theory, data analysis, and/or hardware (building instruments). There are many opportunities in all three of these areas, but personally, I really enjoy hardware work. Getting some experience with electronics would be a good start to this kind of work. The nice thing about this is that most hardware work prepares you for a lot of other careers as well. The electronics work I have done is quite similar to work in the field of cameras and medical imaging. And if you choose to become a scientist, understanding how your instruments work is crucial to being able to work with the data.