Teddy Kareta, Ph.D.

Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, I received my bachelors degrees in Physics and Astronomy from UMass Amherst in 2017 and my Ph.D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 2021. Now as a postdoc at Lowell Observatory, my students and I use data from telescopes, spacecraft, meteor cameras, and laboratory studies to understand the modern properties of the Solar System's "small bodies" and to relate those back to the circumstances of their formation some four-and-a-half billion years ago. Otherwise, I like riding my bike around and photographing the Southwest.

New (April 2025): Starting this August, I'll be starting as an Assistant Professor at Villanova University's Department of Astrophysics and Planetary Science! More details to come soon.

Research Areas

I use a variety of techniques to study the small bodies, ranging from orbital dynamics simulations to observations with Hubble to working with meteorites in the lab. As a result, my research ranges from the surfaces of near-Sun asteroids to the ice content buried at depth on the distant Centaurs. An ADS query for me is available at this link & a few active research projects and recent papers are listed below.

• Hunting for Moon Rocks among the Near-Earth Objects (Kareta et al., 2025) recently featured in the New York Times.
• Characterizing the Dust and Water Ice inside the atmospheres of Comets (Kareta and Noonan et al., 2023).
• Understanding the Complex Dynamical Histories of near-Jupiter Comets and Centaurs (Kareta et al., 2024a).
• Linking Telescopic and Fireball Camera Observations of Earth-impacting Asteroids (Kareta et al., 2024b) recently profiled by Space.com.

I'm also the Principal Investigator (PI) of a recently selected NASA ROSES grant to study the 'Dark Comets', a group of Near-Earth Objects which display comet-like drifts in their orbits without showing any comet-like tails or atmospheres. They're analogues to the first Interstellar Object (ISO) to be discovered, 1I/`Oumuamua, and I've been involved in ISO research since the discovery of the second such object (see Kareta et al., 2020).

Students, Missions, Community

This section is meant to capture a few other things.

Students

Mentoring students and getting them involved in research is my favorite part of the job -- and I've had tremendous luck working with nearly a dozen undergraduates and several graduate students in telescopic, laboratory, and theoretical projects over the years. If you're in the Flagstaff area and are looking for internship opportunities, or are interested in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program at Lowell, email me.

Missions

I've been involved in multiple spacecraft missions, from the European Space Agency's Rosetta as an undergraduate to NASA's OSIRIS-REx as a graduate student to NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) recently as a postdoc. I also took on leading roles in one of the 2024 JPL "Mission Design" Summer School sessions, where our team designed a well-recieved mission to the asteroid Ceres from scratch over about ten weeks.

Community

Outreach to different groups, from toddlers to members of the Arizona State Legislature, is one of the better parts of being an astronomer and a personal priority. I also serve as the Press Secretary for the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences where I've worked hard to diversify our press conferences. If you're a journalist who needs a scientist to talk to for a story, email me and I'll help find you someone to chat with.

I'm most reachable by email (tkareta "at" lowell.edu) -- feel free to reach out about comets, internship opportunities, collaborations, or anything related to the Southwest. I'm also on several social media sites @teddykareta, but BlueSky is the only place I'm even slightly active.