Determining Main Belt and NEO Origins and Increasing Reliability of Asteroid Detections

Overview

Organization National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Reference Code 0336-NPP-NOV
26-JPL-Planet Sci

All applications must be submitted in Zintellect.

Please visit the NASA Postdoctoral Program website for application instructions and requirements:

How to Apply

| NASA Postdoctoral Program (orau.org)

A complete application to the NASA Postdoctoral Program includes:

• Research proposal
• Three letters of recommendation
• Official doctoral transcript documents

11/1/2026 6:00:59 PM Eastern Time Zone

About the NASA Postdoctoral Program The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA’s missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology.

The project aims to understand the distribution of size, albedo, and orbital elements of the smaller (sub-kilometer) Main Belt Asteroids, as this is the source region of potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid population. Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer/Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE/NEOWISE) observations of the MBA have previously been used to generate the needed distribution information, but did not comprehensively de-bias the results.

This work will build from the prior studies, based on the full surveyed populations of those missions, more comprehensive knowledge of instrument and observation properties of the WISE/NEOWISE missions, improved thermal modeling, and other techniques. Results of this work will generate a more comprehensive summary of the MBA population as well as useful information about the targets of the Near-Earth Objects Surveyor (NEOS) mission, which will launch in late 2027, feeding into reliability analyses for its asteroid detections.

Field of Science: Planetary Science

Advisors: Serina Diniega

serina.diniegaa.gov

Eligibility Applications with citizens from Designated Countries will not be accepted at this time, unless they are Legal Permanent Residents of the United States. A complete list of Designated Countries can be found at: https://(Use the "Apply for this Job" box below)..

Questions about this opportunity? Please email npp

The candidate should have demonstrated experience

• studying asteroid or other small body populations, including thermal modeling of small bodies.
• acquiring, processing, and analyzing WISE/NEOWISE observations, with related presentation/publication record.

The candidate should also have robust familiarity with the NEOS mission and its planned observations.

Mikeala

• Citizenship: LPR or U.S. Citizen
• Degree:
  Doctoral Degree.