- Well, so the interesting thing is that, by far, the most common types of planet that we observe, have observed so far, are these planets. We physicists aren't the best at naming things. We name them after things we already know. So they're things called super-Earths and sub-Neptunes. So things bigger than Earth and smaller than-- - I got it. Right, okay. - And they orbit their stars in maybe 10 days. So their year takes 10 days. - Okay. - Comparison, our closest in planet Mercury, takes about 88 days to go around the sun. So the vast majority of all planets that we observe orbit way closer to their star than Mercury does to our sun. - [Announcer] You're listening to "Further Together," the ORAU podcast. Join Michael Holtz and his guests for conversations about all things ORAU. They'll talk about ORAU storied history, our impact on an ever-changing world, our innovative, scientific and technical solutions for our customers, and our commitment to the communities where we do business. Welcome to "Further Together," the ORAU podcast. - Welcome to "Further Together," the ORAU podcast. As ever, it's me, your host, Michael Holtz in the Communications and Marketing Department at ORAU. I've had the pleasure of meeting a number of NASA postdoctoral program fellows, and I'm thrilled to talk to another one of those fellows today. His name is James Rogers. Dr. James Rogers, welcome to "Further Together," the ORU podcast. I'm so glad you're here. - Thank you very much. It's really nice to be here. Looking forward to it. - So, James, tell me a little bit, if you would, about how it came to be that you are a NASA postdoctoral program fellow. - Yeah, so I did my undergraduate and postgraduate degree in London. I'm English. I grew up in the countryside of the Southwest of England. And very early on realized that it's fun to ask lots and lots of questions. And just to keep on asking why, and I think, I'm sure I annoyed my parents and my teachers at times asking these questions all the time. And I think, for me, physics was the natural progression. And so I went on, did a degree in physics. and then carried on and did a PhD in astrophysics, and then moved over to Los Angeles. So I'm a astrobiology fellow, and I work out of UCLA. - Okay. - I've been here a year now, and I started the NPP fellowship just over a month ago actually, so I'm fairly into the fellowship, but having a lot of fun. - So new. - Yeah. - Awesome, talk to me, if you would, about your project focuses on. - So I study extra-solar planets. So these, we typically call the exoplanets. So, right, we have eight planets in our solar system, plus loads of other smaller bodies, like asteroids and things like that. But we know of, and in the last couple of decades, we've detected thousands of exoplanets. These are planets that orbit other stars in our galaxy. - Okay. - And I'm very interested in trying to understand, trying to un-piece the information that we can learn on things like planet formation and planet evolution, and trying to piece together where our solar system fits into this picture. Are we weird? Are we not weird? I think the answer is that we-- - Are we alone? Is that a question? - Yeah, these are the fundamental questions I think that it does boil down to is, you know, are we alone? Is there life in other places in at least our galaxy and even our solar system? And yeah, so I'm very interested in formation and I work a lot on theoretical modeling of planet formation and particularly the atmospheres of planets is what I'm really interested in. - Okay. - Thinking about how the planet evolve and yeah. That's the kind of beautiful. - Yeah, so it sounds like from your introduction, that science has always been a fundamental interest for you, if you're asking why and maybe irritating your parents with the question, right? - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah, there was a time that I wanted to go into medicine and be a medical doctor. I think the goal for me was to, I think I just wanted to do the hardest thing. That was always my choice. I just wanted to go into the hardest path. But then I remember that actually the questions that really kind of stuck with me and I found most fascinating were the physics questions. - Okay. - And, you know, what are atoms made of? What are stars? What are planets? Where do they come from? So that's how I kind of eventually honed down into astrophysics and from there, exoplanets and things like that. - That's awesome. I love that. I have to imagine that in a world where you're studying exoplanets, that collaboration is a huge part of the work that you do, because you can't know all of that without using, you know, the, you know, optical device and other things that other scientists have developed. So you have to work in a sizable team, I would imagine. What's collaboration like for someone who studies exoplanets? - Yeah. Well, I'll start by saying that the field of exoplanets is still quite young. It's only been around decades. And so, you know, in terms of scientific fields, it's still very young. And so the field is filled with lots of young people with lots of passion. And I think it's a really exciting field to be part of. As a field, we're only really just finding our feet. We're still, you know, there's discoveries that are just coming out on a monthly or even weekly basis of just, you know, new things, and rewriting textbooks, and things like that. So it's really fun to be part of such a young, passionate, and diverse group of people. I guess I work more on the theoretical side of things. But, because he field is moving so forward so fast, the observers and the theorists have to talk to each other a lot. And so that's kind of where the collaboration really comes in. So we, you know, there have been some amazing NASA space missions, like Kepler and tests that have gone out and detected thousands of exoplanets. And, you know, we are really trying to, as theorists, I'm sure the observers would say, we're trying to keep up with those observations, and trying to explain what's going on. So, but we as theorists obviously say that it's the way around, and it's actually the observers trying to keep up with us, but. - Little bit a turf war sort of jokingly, you know. - Yeah. No, it's so important that we keep communicating and kind of us as theorists, we can say, well, this is where we think something might see, or this is something we might expect to see in the populations of exoplants. And so we might say to observers, "Can you help us try and go and detect this?" And then observers, at the same time, can come to theorists and say, "We've seen this. What does it mean? How do you interpret this?" And sometimes for our theories, this means, well, something needs to be changed in our theory. And sometimes we're like, yes, our theory's right. - Proves what we thought. - Yeah, yeah. But yeah, like I said, it's such a young and diverse group of people that work in this field, and it's a real privilege to work with them, and share the discoveries that we're making. - Yeah, yeah. And it has to be exciting and also fulfilling to be kind of on this leading edge of knowledge. I mean, you're theorizing and learning things that we didn't know before. - Yeah. yeah. And it's, I think one of the things in my research that I do, I try to do a lot of is learning about exoplanets and planet formation. Prior to our first discovering an exoplanet, we only had the eight planets in our solar system to learn from. And yes, we have the amazing opportunity that we can go and send probes to them and hopefully land some people on them one day. - Right, right, right. - And touch them and take samples to a laboratory, and say, oh, "It's made of this. "It probably came from this." So we can't do that with exoplanets 'cause they're hundreds of light years away. But the difference is that we have thousands of them, instead of just, you know, eight or plus the smaller bodies in our solar system. So the thing you can do is you can look at the thousands of planets. You might not know specific details about all of them, but together they paint a picture, like a broad brush stroke picture. And it's from that that we're really starting to learn a lot about things like planet formation and our place in that picture of the array of solar systems out there. - And does it help us better understand too, even what we think we know about the planets in our own solar system? - Yeah, I think, yeah, absolutely. I think, well, so the interesting thing is that, by far, the most common types of planet that we observe, have observed so far, are these planets. We physicists aren't the best at naming things. We name them after things we already know. So they're things called super-Earths and sub-Neptunes. So things bigger than Earth is more than-- - I got it. Right, okay. - And they orbit their stars in maybe 10 days. So their year takes 10 days. - Okay. - Comparison, our closest in planet Mercury, takes about 88 days to go around the sun. So the vast majority of all planets that we observe orbit way closer to their star than Mercury does to our sun. So they're in a completely different environment. And particularly, something that I think about a lot is what happens to their atmospheres? They're so close into their host stars that actually their atmospheres can be completely removed by the star. The radiation is so intense, you know. Thousands of degrees, they can be at their surface that the atmospheres are completely complete stripped. So I think when we first started trying going out and detecting planets, the goal was to try and understand, try and measure, and detect other Earth-like planets around sun-like stars. That was one of the goals of actually the Keppler mission, but actually, in fact, we found exactly zero. - Really? - But that's not because they're out there. That's because we didn't have the sensitivity to actually detect. Really, Earth is a very small planet in the scheme of things, compared to the others. And it's quite far away from our sun. What we're very good at detecting, planets that are close, very close to their stars. And so we kind of had to shift and think, "Okay, let's, let's hold out for a second on trying to hone down Earth-like planets around sun-like stars, and let's try and understand these super-Earths and these sub neptunes, which about 50% of all sun-like stars have at least one of them. - Okay. So they're really, really, important. Suddenly we needed to understand them, and how they formed, and you know, why don't we have one? We definitely don't have one of these in our solar system. - And why is that? And yeah. - Yeah, good question. - So, lots of questions still to be asked and answered. - Absolutely, yeah. Yes. - So James, how does a kid from Southwest England come to NASA? - Yeah, so like I said, I grew up loving science and kind of had a little couple of years where I wanted to go into medicine and then decided that physics was really the questions that I would become most obsessed about, you know, not quite keeping me up at night, but that sort of thing. And so I did my degree in theoretical physics, and then I got a really amazing opportunity to do a PhD in exoplanets, again, in this really young and exciting field and where all these questions are being asked and answered. And then through my PhD I started working with some sciences here at UCLA, and they are part of the astrobiology program for the NASA Postdoctoral Program Fellowship. - Okay. - So I started collaborating with them, working on some theory of planet evolution. And then through meeting them, I was invited last year to apply for the NPP fellowship, but I was very fortunate enough to get it. So I started a month ago. And it's coming from a very, very small village in the Southwest of England, LA, Los Angeles, is a bit of a change. - I'm sure. It's been very exciting and very fun to come and see new part of the world and work with new people. And yeah, it's been a lot of fun. - Gotcha. It sounds like to get to make those, you know, changes, get to where you are, you've had some really great mentors along the way. Talk about those folks. - Yeah, absolutely. I think going all the way back to school when I used to ask all those questions and really fantastic sciences that wouldn't just say, "I'll answer you later," but actually, you know-- - Or, "Because, just because." - Yeah. But, took the time to say, "You know, well, that's a really good question. Here's some ideas, and you should go and find out yourself." And it's kind of really stimulating that curiosity to go and work things out for yourself, and do your own research. And then really, really great undergraduate. That was at Imperial College London. And then, so my PhD advisor was someone called James Owen, who was a fantastic mentor and has really set me up for having a lot of fun in this field, and has taught me so much. And then, like I was saying, through collaborating with people at UCLA, I'm now with my current mentor, Hilke Schlichting, who again, is just such a fantastic role model and I learned things daily from them. And it's a real honor to be able to work with them and continue to learn things from them. And then plus all the other people I work with as well. We're just always trying to learn off each other, and learn more stuff. - Yeah, yeah, right. On the flip side of that, James, have you had the opportunity to be a mentor for younger scientists? - Yeah, I think as I'm now progressing from my PhD to my postdoc, I'm starting to mentor undergraduate students and master students. And I really enjoy trying to give people the opportunities to try and realize their own dreams of working in science. And, you know, not everyone chooses to go and work in science. They might go and apply their skills in different things, you know, science, technology, engineering, things like that. But it's really fun when you mentor someone that shares your, your passion for something that you work on. You immediately get on with someone, and you both have that drive to kind of try and answer something fundamental. So I really enjoy mentoring and passing on the lessons that I've learned myself. - Awesome. Yeah, awesome. I like that. In your path to get to where you are James, have there been obstacles you've had to overcome? - I think I'm very aware that I've had really so many. I've been given so many opportunities and I actually, I have had a very fortunate upbringing. Lots of support and lots of, you know, opportunities to really explore the passion that I have. And, you know, the challenges for me were things like moving to the other side of the world, and, you know, moving here out on my own, and, you know, that question of the passion that I have for this subject, is it enough for me to move across the world for? - Right. - I mean, it was obviously. - Obviously. - Yeah, you know, working in science is an interesting vocation. There are sometimes sacrifices you have to make in terms of where you wanna be, and how you wanna do it. So, but again, every time I think about those sacrifices, you sometimes have to make, it always comes down to the fact that I feel so passionate about what I do. And I'm so lucky to be able to wake up and just think about planets. It still doesn't really seem like an actual job description. So I'm very privileged, and I'll continue to take any opportunity I can to continue working on it. - Awesome. If I'm a young and up and coming scientist who wants to follow in your footsteps, James, what advice do you have for me? - Ooh, good question. I would say, again, as I probably sound like a broken record, you need to pick a topic that you feel passionate about, that you have curiosity. I think I would say I have, or I've been able to develop a healthy level of obsession about what I work on. Sometimes you need, to get to, or at least get towards, the truth, you need to be able to, you know, get a little bit obsessed about it, not to the point where it's unhealthy, right? - Well, sure. But, you know, it needs to drive you. You need to be able to get out and look forward to going and working things out. And yes, there are very difficult times when you are stuck on a problem, and you're banging your head against the desk. Not literally, but you're trying to work out what's going on. So I would say, probably the most important thing is pick a topic that you really find fascinating. Try to surround yourself with people that you aspire to, you know, work with and, you know, the way that they approach science, you want to surround yourself with good role models, if you can, and reach out, you know, if you're struggling, reach out, and ask people, you know, have you ever experienced this? Have you ever had struggled with this? You know, I think a lot of us, and, you know, this is something that I've also done as well, you know, reaching out and asking people who are more senior than me, have you got any advice for me at this stage? What would you do? And I think anyone, you know, the vast majority of us are so open and keen to help those more junior stages help them get through and, you know, with whatever queries they have. - Right. - You know, it is a community, and I think take advantage of that, and take advantage of the experience that other people have. And yeah, just make sure you're having fun, as much as you can. - Yeah, right. Well, you know, I think being passionate about something makes it fun, you know, in and of itself because you're driven by your interest in the topic area, so you're gonna be asking the questions and looking for the answers. - Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. - Last question, James. What brings you joy? - Besides science, and working, and being lucky enough to work on all these topics and trying to answer these questions, I really love my sport. Play a lot of tennis. Do some mountaineering. I really love my music. I love playing drums. And I actually just bought a piano last week, and I decided to learn piano from scratch. - Really? Awesome. - I guess I love learning new things would probably be the punchline. I love exposing myself to learn something new and try something that I might be awful at. - Right, right. Actually, that piano thing is on my list too, of something I want to do. - Really? Yeah, I was playing some beats over the weekend. It was great. - Cool. - Not very well, but... - Hey. You have to start somewhere, right? - Yeah, exactly. - Awesome. Well, James Rogers, thank you so much for spending this time with me. I really appreciate it. - Thank you very much. - It has been a pleasure. - [Announcer] Thank you for listening to "Further Together," the ORAU podcast. To learn more about any of the topics discussed by our experts, visit www.orau.org. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, @ORAU, and on Instagram @ORAUTogether. If you like "Further Together," the ORAU podcast, we would appreciate you giving us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your reviews will help more people find the podcast.