DATE2021.12.23 #Awards & Prizes

Professor Kanako Seki wins the 38th Inoue Academic Prize

Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.

Professor Kanako Seki

Professor Kanako Seki of the Department of Earth and Planetary Science has received the 38th Inoue Science Prize.

Professor Seki has been studying how the atmosphere flows out from the planets into space. Planets in the solar system are constantly exposed to the high-speed solar winds that blow out from the sun, and the planetary atmospheres are affected by the winds as they flow out. By combining satellite data and numerical experiments, Professor Seki has clarified how the Earth's atmosphere is affected by the solar wind and transported through the Earth's magnetosphere, which is space away from the Earth. These results are important discoveries that provide a new understanding of atmospheric dissipation and have an impact not only on geomagnetospheric physics but also on planetary science more broadly. Furthermore, Professor Seki has extended his research activities not only to the space environment around the Earth, but also to the environment around non-Earth planets such as Mars. Recently, based on comparisons among terrestrial planets with atmospheres, especially Earth, Mars, and Venus, he has been working on clarifying the effects of the strength of the intrinsic magnetic fields of the planets on the dissipation of atmosphere into space and the formation of the inner magnetosphere, and has achieved many results. In conducting his research, he has participated in various space science missions, such as the Geospace Exploration Program (ERG) and NASA's Mars Exploration Mission to Mars (MAVEN), and has led the field through international collaborative research. These series of studies on planetary atmospheres and space environments are completely new and have been highly acclaimed worldwide. We would like to express our sincere congratulations on receiving the Inoue Science Prize.

The 38th Inoue Science Prize
http://www.inoue-zaidan.or.jp/b-01.html?eid=00049

(Responsibility: Professor Shinsuke Imada, Department of Earth and Planetary Science)