Nicholas G. Heavens
Dr. Heavens will be leaving Hampton University at the end of 2019 but will remain as a Visiting Scientist to complete extant projects. Please see his current institutional web site or his Linkedin profile.
I am a planetary scientist who uses the knowledge/methods/infrastructure of meteorology and climatology to help geologists more effectively explore the past, either by better integrating earth system modeling with geological investigations or developing the weather services infrastructure that will help robots and humans safely explore Mars, Venus, and beyond. Please consult my curriculum vitae for the most current information or browse the project pages below to learn about the projects I work on or have worked on. I currently tweet (as @WeatherOnMars ) on climate and space sciences.
Dust storm in Noctis Labyrinthus during October of 2006 as imaged by the Mars Color Imager on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Raw image data was obtained from the Planetary Data System and processed by USGS ISIS software.
Student and Postdoctoral Opportunities
I am not able to support students or postdoctoral scholars at this time.
I strongly encourage any undergraduate interested in atmospheric or planetary science to consider the CREST Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) at Hampton University. and apply.
Current Projects
Project: Dust in the Year Before Curiosity
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This project closed in late 2015. But work on Martian dust continues… The Mars Year before the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity was a year of excellent observational coverage by the Mars Climate Sounder on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as the result of quiet weather and good instrument and spacecraft health. Focusing on changes in […]
Project: Dust in the Late Paleozoic Ice Age
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Background Between 2010 and 2012, Dr. Nicholas Heavens was a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. While there, he explored the climate of the Earth during a putative minimum in atmospheric carbon dioxide and maximum in glaciation around 300 million years ago (the Late Paleozoic Ice Age). He […]
Project: Polar Turbulence of the Giant Planets
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As you can see in the images below, the visible weather layers of Jupiter and Saturn have vastly different regimes of turbulence near each pole. I am currently working with Dr. Kunio M. Sayanagi to determine why.
Project: The Structural and Dynamical Role of Deep Convection in Martian Dust Storms
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A team led by Dr. Nicholas G. Heavens at HU has been funded by NASA to study the role that convection may play in the structure and organization of Martian dust storms. Convection has been identified in imagery of Martian dust storms for 40 years, but there has been little systematic study in how it […]
Project: HBCU-RISE Hampton University: Advanced Physical Modeling and Simulation for 21st Century Scientists
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From weather prediction to medical imaging to nuclear physics, numerical modeling and simulation have become central to the way we investigate and manipulate the physical world. Building on Hampton University’s expertise in Atmospheric Remote Sensing and Planetary Physics, the objective of the proposed project is to develop a complementary modeling and data analysis capability through […]
Project: The Living, Breathing Planet
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Graduate student opportunities available now! More information here. Hampton University Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences has been selected to lead a team within the Nexus for Exoplanet Systems Science (NExSS). As one of 17 teams, we work to advance NASA’s search for life by bringing together Planetary Science, Heliophysics, Astrophysics, and Astrobiology to deepen […]
Project: Modeling Dust Injection and Vertical Mixing for the Next Generation of Martian Exploration
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From August 2015, HU is leading an effort in cooperation with Aeolis Research and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (both in Pasadena, California) to better represent the formation of dust clouds above Mars’s planetary boundary layer in planetary-scale simulations of Mars’s atmosphere. This first paper to come out of this project was published by Icarus. […]
Dr. Heavens will be leaving Hampton University at the end of 2019 but will remain as a Visiting Scientist to complete extant projects. Please see his current institutional web site or his Linkedin profile.