Job title:
Professor of planetary science
Bio/CV:
As a member of the NASA missions Juno and Cassini, Burkhard Militzer investigates the interior structure and evolution of the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. His work demonstrated that helium rain occurs deep within Jupiter and that Saturn’s rings are unexpectedly young -- only about 200 million years old. Using first-principles computer simulations, he studies how planetary materials behave under extreme pressures. Most recently, his research has shown that planetary ices such as H₂O, CH₄, and NH₃ spontaneously phase separate in the interiors of Uranus and Neptune, helping to explain the unusual, disordered nature of their magnetic fields.
Burkhard Militzer is the director of the Center for Integrative Planetary Science (CIPS): https://cips.berkeley.edu/
Website: https://militzer.berkeley.edu/
Role:
