Sascha Zeegers - Personal Profiles

Main Research Fields

My research focusses on cosmic dust. This dust ultimately forms the building blocks for planets and life on Earth. It is created during the last stages in the life cycle of stars, but we do not yet know well what happens to the dust grains as they travel through the interstellar medium and how they end up in planetary systems. Studying the physical and chemical characteristics of dust will reveal this story.  

I use spectroscopy to study silicates, a major component of cosmic dust. The infrared and X-ray wavelength ranges that I study show features that reveal the size, shape, chemical composition, and lattice structure of the dust. To derive these properties, I observe dust along the line of sight towards stars using observations from multiple space telescopes, such as the NSA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope (NASA/ESA/CSA), ESA’s XMM-Newton and the upcoming JAXA/NASA/ESA XRISM mission.