Joshua Colwell

Joshua Colwell (PhDAstro) wants to know how the Solar System formed. And after several small experiments aboard NASA’s zero-gravity “vomit comet,” he landed a grant to study early planet formation as part of NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initative. His thermos-sized experiment will live aboard a satellite for a year or more in low-Earth orbit. Joshua, a physics professor at the University of Central Florida, has explored how dust collides and forms bigger chunks in the protoplanetary disks where planets form around newborn stars.