SOLVING THE RIDDLES OF SPACE AND TIME
From explaining how asteroids orbit Jupiter to free-floating planets and twin Earth, Nikolaos Georgakarakos is uncovering the secrets of the Solar System and beyond.
While most of the world’s media debates whether or not man will set foot on Mars, or if billionaires will ever colonize outer space, academics such as Nikolaos Georgakarakos work tirelessly behind the scenes, answering the space questions we didn’t know we needed answers to.
As a research associate at NYU Abu Dhabi, Georgakarakos was recently part of a project concerning two of Jupiter’s asteroid swarms which had baffled scientists for years. “They couldn’t work out why there was
a significant difference in the numbers of asteroids between the two groups,” Georgakarakos explains. “Both orbit Jupiter as it orbits the sun, in near-identical pathways.”
In a paper published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, Georgakarakos and an international team of scientists explain why one swarm has about 1.6 times the asteroids of the other, and possibly different evolution paths for each. “I joined the project rather late, but it is well related to the work I did in my PhD and in the years that followed,” says Georgakarakos. “I come from a mathematics and physics background, but became very interested in astronomy. My PhD explored the three-body problem, and the dynamics resulting from three ‘bodies’ interacting with one another, such as the Sun, the Earth, and the Moon. I applied my theories to Jupiter and its asteroid swarms, helping to explain this asymmetry.”
Georgakarakos says that attending seminars and conferences all over the world, giving talks and meeting colleagues, inevitably led to collaborating in projects such as this, which involve peers from the US, Japan, and China. “I like to see where I’m able to use my knowledge, and you become inspired by different problems,” he says.
More space-related confusion looks set to be resolved as part of another upcoming paper concerning free-floating planets. “The formation of planetary systems can be quite violent, with planets forming, colliding, and being expelled, traveling from one system to the next,” he said
“I helped to develop a mathematical framework a few years back that identified so-called ‘Habitable Zones’ in five known exoplanet systems with two stars, between 2,764 and 5,933 light years from Earth, potentially capable of supporting life.”
With his theoretical work, Georgakarakos describes the large number of simulations required to arrive at the mechanisms designed to present an explanation and commends the computational processing power on offer at NYUAD. Maybe his work will even reveal the location of a possible twin Earth. “I helped to develop a mathematical framework a few years back that identified so-called ‘Habitable Zones’ in five known exoplanet systems with two stars, between 2,764 and 5,933 light years from Earth, potentially capable of supporting life,” Georgakarakos explains.
“Liquid water, important for life as we know it, could persist on the surface of a planet in these zones. Scientists have only identified giant exoplanets in these systems so far, but it’s possible that smaller, Earth-like planets might exist.”
Georgakarakos plans to contribute to more papers and mechanisms and hopefully solve even more galactic mysteries. “It’s very interesting to people,” he says. “They want answers, explanations. Astronomy is something that gets people excited.”
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