John Spencer, Ph.D.
From The Space Library
John Spencer, Ph.D.
John Spencer is a staff scientist at Southwest Research Institute's Department of Space Studies in Boulder. He obtained a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Cambridge in England and a Ph.D in planetary sciences from the University of Arizona. He studies the four large Galilean satellites of Jupiter and temperature-mapped Jupiter's moons with the photopolarimeter-radiometer instrument on the Jupiter-orbiting Galileo spacecraft. He is now using the composite infrared spectrometer on the Cassini Saturn orbiter to study Saturn's moons. He has published research on Mars, asteroids, Pluto, and Neptune's moon Triton and is a team member on the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. He discovered several volcanic eruptions on Io; co-discovered Io's asymmetrical atmosphere; and co-discovered oxygen on Jupiter's moon Ganymede. His theoretical work has improved our understanding of nitrogen frost on Pluto and Triton, water frost on Jupiter's moons, and heat radiation from asteroids.
