CLARKSVILLE, Tenn (CLARKSVILLENOW) – An Austin Peay State University graduate is heading to the South Pole for a 10-month expedition to research Jupiter’s seismology.
Deborah Gulledge, an APSU physics graduate, is currently enrolled as a graduate student at Georgia State University and will be one of approximately 1,600 people to spend the better part of a year at the South Pole.
Gulledge will leave in January 2020 and return in mid-November of the same year. Her mission is to learn if Jupiter has a solid core.
“The news is easily the most exciting news I’ve ever received,” Gulledge said. “I’ve been hoping to go to the Pole for years and have been working toward it for months. I feel exhilarated and nervous and unbelievably happy — like I’m on top of the world because I’m about to go to the bottom of it.”
Gulledge is currently in Hawaii preparing for the South Pole mission, helping build a telescope to observe Jupiter and its seismology. The team hopes the telescope can measure the sound waves traveling through the planet and use the measurements to map Jupiter’s internal structure, she said.
When she arrives at the South Pole, Gulledge will help assemble the telescope on the ice, troubleshoot and get the telescope running. She will be joined by 40 people “wintering over.”
Gulledge will also use the time to work on her dissertation, which concerns the seismology of gas giants.
“Getting a chance to collect and work with this amazing data will help me write a strong dissertation and make a big contribution to the scientific community,” Gulledge said. “There are opportunities to make some really big breakthroughs here, and I’m excited to be part of the forefront of a new field.”
After graduation, she plans to apply to the astronaut corps.
“I believe the experience of living and working in the most unforgiving, most isolated place on our planet is invaluable training for one day working in the most extreme environment known to humanity – space.”