Introduction
As an space and mathematics enthusiast, I have a broad interest in studying the formation, evolution, and present-day interior properties of various fascinating planets and moons in our Solar System using geophysical methods, especially in connection to space missions. I am currently a researcher in the Division of Geological and Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology with close collaborations with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the beautiful city of Pasadena. Here, I mainly work on modeling the interior properties and the geodetic observables of Jupiter's fascinating moons, Europa, Io, and Ganymede, Saturn's spectacular moons, Enceladus and Titan, and Mars and its two mysterious moons, Phobos and Deimos.
Before joining Caltech, I obtained my PhD in planetary geophysics followed by being a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, one of the world's leading universities in Earth and planetary sciences. My PhD in Zurich was defined in the context of NASA's Mars InSight mission, a discovery class mission which put the first successfull seismometer on the surface of the red planet. Specifically, I studied the interior of Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos, mainly exploiting their gravitational response known as solid body tides. I also worked on modeling the evolution of Martian moons with the aim to decipher their history and origin. Next, I continued by working on the tidal and thermal evolution of icy/ocean worlds such as Pluto and Charon, with the purpose of understanding the properties of their subsurface oceans.
Mars InSight mission Science Team meeting, Graz, September, 2018.
Surprisingly enough, I had obtained yet another PhD from the University of Tehran in Iran, following a Masters degree, both in Civil Engineering. I obtained my Bachelors from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, as well.
Alongside my research, in my free times I enjoy photography, traveling, playing and watching soccer, swimming, listening to music, hiking, and reading poems. If you are interested, join me in this fabulous journey...
Research
Research interests
Given the interdisciplinary nature of planetary science, I am interested in various topics in this realm, particularly those hinged to geophysics. I try to treat the planetary science questions in a practical and objective way! As a result, I compile a suite of skills and approaches, including numerical methods, inversion techniques, thermodynamic calculations, orbital dynamics, and solid-state mechanics, for various problems of interest in planetary science, ultimately aiming to understand the interior properties, origin, evolution, and habitability of planets and moons in Solar system.
My bodies of more interest are Mars and its moons Phobos and Deimos, Enceladus, Europa, Pluto, and Charon. But I am always curious to explore other bodies as well!
More specifically, I am currently interested in following areas in planetary geophysics:
Interior modleing of planets and moons
Solid body viscoelastic tides modeling
Coupled thermal-orbital evolution of moons
Gravity fields, libration, and rotation of planets and moons
N-body orbital dynamics
Probabilistic inverse problems
Below is a very brief description of my current and past projects. More details will be provided soon!
Mars InSight lander. The first spacecraft to successfully land a geophysical suite on another planet.
Current projects
I am currently working on several projects with regard to Enceladus, Galilean moons, Mars and its moons, and theoretical aspects of orbital dynamics. Stay tuned for updates!
Completed projects
Mars
I have worked on various problems in planetary geophysics field. This include modeling the interior of Mars based on self-consistent thermodynamics approach and several viscoelastic models to compute the tidal response. I use this is an inverse problem approach using Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampling to constrain the interior properties of Mars. This study provided pre-mission insights into the main interior structure elements of Mars including the size of its layers, and the viscoelastic properties of the mantle. I also predicted attenuation within Mars across a long range of periods from the seismic waves over normal modes, tides, and long period planetary wobbles.
Phobos and Deimos
I worked on the tidal-orbital evolution of the Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos with the aim of studying their history, origin, and the interior structure. I used the constraints obtained by studying the seismic waves and tides on Mars's interior structure to predict the dissipation properties during the orbital evolution of Phobos and Deimos. For this study, I developed a rigorous tidal-orbital evolution model which incorporates high order eccentricity functions and tidal dissipation due to the libration in longitude of the moon. This study resulted in a new hypothesis about the origin of the moons as being fragments of a common progenitor which was disintegrated around 1-2.7 billion years ago.
Icy-ocean worlds
In this project, I extended my orbital evolution model for the case where the spin and orbital rates of none of the two bodies are synchronised. I combined this model with a thermal evolution model appropriate for icy bodies which takes into account, in addition to the radiogenic heating, the heat generated as result of tidal dissipation. I used this methodology to study the coupled thermal and orbital evolution of the Pluto and Charon system with the aim of constraining the properties of the their subsurface liquid oceans.
Seismic waves in complex media
I have worked on theoretical aspect of seismic wave propagation in media consisting of anisotrpic solid material and fluids, using semi-analytical methods, with the aim of understanding the effect of anisotropy on wave propagation and their interaction with the fluid layers.
Collaborators and advisors
Prof. Mark Simons (Caltech, current advisor)
Prof. Domenico Giardini (ETH Zurich, former advisor)
Steven Vance (NASA JPL)
Bruce Bills (NASA JPL)
Mohit Melwani Daswani (NASA JPL)
Amir Khan (ETH Zurich)
Simon Stahler (ETH Zurich)
David Al-Attar (Oxford University)
Michael Efroimsky (US Naval Observatory)
Emer. Prof. Stewart Greenhalgh (ETH Zurich)
Alexander Berne (Caltech)
Joe Renaud (NASA GSFC)
Henri Samuel (IPGP)
Frederic Deschamps (Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
Publications
Selected Journal articles
Exploring the Tidal Deformations of Ocean Worlds with PyALMA, F.
Petricca, S. Tharimena, D. Melini, G. Spada, A. Bagheri, M. J. Styczinski, S. D.
Vance, Under revision, 2023.
Tidal Constraints on the Martian Interior, L. Pou, F.Nimmo, A. Rivoldini, A.
Khan, A. Bagheri, T. Gray, H. Samuel, P. Lognonné, A.-C. Plesa, T. Gudkova,
D. Giardini, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2022.
The tidal-thermal evolution of the Pluto-Charon system, A. Bagheri,
A. Khan, F. Deschamps, H. Samuel, M. Kruglyakov, D. Giardini, Icarus, 2022,
(376).
Constraints on the interior structure of Phobos from tidal deformation
modeling, A. Dmitrovskii, A. Khan, C. Boehm, A. Bagheri, M. van Driel, Icarus,
2022, (372).
Tidal insights into rocky and icy bodies: An introduction and overview, A. Bagheri, M. Efroimsky, J. Castillo-Rogez, S. Goossens, A.C. Plesa, N. Rambaux, M. Walterová, A. Khan, D. Giardini, Advance in Geophysics , 2022.
Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a disrupted common progenitor, A. Bagheri, A. Khan, M. Efroimsky, M. Kruglyakov, D. Giardini, Nature Astronomy, 2021, 5 (6), 539-543.
Tidal dissipation in dual-body, highly eccentric, and non-synchronously
rotating systems: applications to Pluto-Charon and the exoplanet
TRAPPIST-1e, J. Renaud, W.G. Henning, P. Saxena, M. Neveu, A. Bagheri,
A. Mandell, T. Hurford, The Planetary Science Journal, 2021, 2 (1).
Tidal response of Mars constrained from laboratory-based viscoelastic dissipation models and geophysical data, A. Bagheri, A. Khan, D. Al-Attar, O. Crawford, D. Giardini, Journal of Geophysical Research, 2019, 124 (11), 2703–2727.
The asymmetric elastic wavefields in a model comprising a liquid layer
overlying an anisotropic solid seabed due to an arbitrary source within
the solid, A. Bagheri, A. Khojasteh, M. Rahimian, S. Greenhalgh, R. Attarnejad,
Applied Ocean Research, 2017, (62), 119-138.
Tsunami generation and associated waves in the water column and seabed
due to an asymmetric earthquake motion within an anisotropic substratum,
A. Bagheri, S. Greenhalgh, A. Khojasteh, M. Rahimian, R. Attarnejad.
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 2016, 121 (10), 7701-7715
Dynamic Green's functions for a contacting fluid layer and transversely
isotropic half-space due to a source within the liquid, A. Bagheri, S. Greenhalgh, A. Khojasteh, M. Rahimian, Wave Motion, 2016, (63), 83-97.
Dispersion of Rayleigh, Scholte, Stoneley and Love waves in a model
consisting of a liquid layer overlying a two-layer transversely isotropic solid
medium, A. Bagheri, S. Greenhalgh, A. Khojasteh, M. Rahimian, Geophysical
Journal International 2015, 203 (1), 228-245.
Selected Talks
Using tides to reveal the interior and evolution of rocky and icy bodies in the context of planetary missions - Application to the Mars system, Enceladus, and Pluto-Charon binary, Caltech, January, 2024
Tidal constraints on the interior and evolution of rocky and icy planets
and moons, July 2023 TU Delft
Heating planetary bodies with tidal interactions, Latsis symposium on the origin and prevalence of life, ETH Zürich, September 2022
Tidal evolution of planetary bodies, Rocky Worlds II, Oxford, July 2022
Tidal and Thermal evolution of Pluto and Charon, ETH Zürich, April 2022
Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a
disrupted common progenitor, EPSC Meetings, September 2021
Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a
disrupted common progenitor, DPS Meetings, October 2021
Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a disrupted common progenitor, Leiden Observatory, March 2021
Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos
as remnants of a disrupted common progenitor, CIPS seminar of UC Berkeley/UCLA, February 2021
Dynamical evidence for Phobos and Deimos as remnants of a disrupted common progenitor, February 2021 University of Zürich,
Investigating rheological models in the context of geophysical inversion for planetary structure, AGU Fall meetings, San Francisco, December 2019
Orbital evolution of the Martian Moons and their origin, ETH Zürich, March 2019
Orbital evolution of the Martian Moons and their origin, MIT EAPS, Boston, March 2019
Orbital evolution of the Martian Moons and their origin, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, April 2019
Analysis of the dynamic response of a transversely isotropic solid in contact with a liquid layer, University of Washington, July 2016
Selected Conference Proceedings
Tidal Constraints on the Properties of Enceladus's Subsurface Oocean. A. Bagheri, B. Journaux, A. Berne, M. Simons, 55th Lunar and Planetary Science conference, 2024
Tidal-Thermal Evolution of the Pluto-Charon System, A. Bagheri, A. Khan,
H. Samuel, F. Deschamps, M. Kruglyakov, D. Giardini, 52nd Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference, 2021.
Geophysical Constraints on Phobos’s Interior Structure, A. Bagheri,
A. Khan, M. Efroimsky, M. Kruglyakov, D. Giardini, 52nd Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference, 2021.
Orbital Evolution of the Mars-Phobos Tidal System, A. Dmitrovskii, A. Khan,
C. Boehm, A. Bagheri, M. van Driel, 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference,
2021.
Geophysical Constraints on Phobos’s Interior Structure, A. Bagheri,
A. Khan, M. Efroimsky, M. Kruglyakov, D. Giardini, 52nd Lunar and Planetary
Science Conference, 2021.
Tidal evolution of a Martian-satellite system, A. Bagheri, A. Khan, D. Giardini,
M. Efroimsky, M. Kruglyakov, 43rd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, 2021.
The Influence of Viscoelastic Properties of Ice on the Probability of
Higher-order Spin-orbital Resonance Trapping During the Early Evolution
of Pluto-Charon, J. Renaud, W.G. Henning, P. Saxena, M. Neveu, A. Bagheri,
A. Mandell, T. Hurford, AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts P076-0011, 2020.
Tidal Dissipation in Dual-Body, Highly Eccentric, and Non-synchronously
Rotating Systems: Applications to Exoplanets and the Early History of
Pluto-Charon, J. Renaud, W.G. Henning, P. Saxena, M. Neveu, A. Bagheri,
A. Mandell, T. Hurford, AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts,
2020.
Orbital Evolution of the Mars-Phobos Tidal System., A. Bagheri, A. Khan,
D. Giardini, M. Efroimsky, M. Kruglyakov, 52nd AAS/Division for Planetary
Sciences Meeting Abstracts, 2019 (6), 507.07.
Investigating rheological models in the context of geophysical inversion
for planetary structure, A. Bagheri, A. Khan, D. Giardini, M. Efroimsky,
AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts, 2018, P44A-09.
Personal
To be completed soon...
Contact
Interested in reaching out?
Send an email to one of the addresses below:
abagheri@caltech.edu
amirhbagheri@yahoo.com
Or find me on the following platforms:
Outreach
I particiapte in various outreach activities for spreading out the scientific outcomes we reach in the planetary science community!
More details to be added soon!
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