{"id":117418,"date":"2021-01-28T14:16:40","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=117418"},"modified":"2021-01-28T14:21:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T19:21:36","slug":"a-ucf-aerospace-engineering-student-has-out-of-this-world-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/a-ucf-aerospace-engineering-student-has-out-of-this-world-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"A UCF Aerospace Engineering Student Has Out-of-This World Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jillian Gloria of Orlando has always been inspired by space exploration, and as a junior pursuing aerospace engineering at UCF she has held multiple research positions and worked with industry as she prepares to someday become an astronaut.<\/p>\n

Her most recent project came out of her involvement with UCF physics Assistant Professor William Kaden\u2019s Research Group where she had the opportunity to study water evolution processes that take place on the moon. Within this group, Gloria focused on developing hardware used to study the changes in chemistry on models of the moon and increase efficiency in thin film growth. These models were made of aluminosilicates minerals that play an important role in finding water on the moon.<\/p>\n

The lab simulated the effects of space weathering on the moon by growing aluminosilicate thin-films in a vacuum in the lab and exposing them to different forms of radiation testing. This work led to a co-authorship on a NASA-funded paper recently published in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology<\/em>. The understanding of such processes gleaned from this type of work will help NASA plan exploration missions by providing an improved map to search for water on the moon, says Kaden.<\/p>\n