Patrick Michel | |
|---|---|
 Michel with the bookAsteroids IV, 2017 | |
| Born | (1975-02-25)February 25, 1975 Saint-Tropez, France |
| Alma mater | Université Nice-Sophia-Antipolis |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | planetary science |
| Institutions | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique |
| Thesis | Dynamical evolution of Near-Earth Asteroids (1997) |
| Website | http://www.obs-nice.fr/michel |
Patrick Michel (born 25 February 1970 inSaint-Tropez, France) is a Frenchplanetary scientist, Senior Researcher at CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), member of the TOP team (forTheories and Observations in Planetology) within the Lagrange laboratory, itself under the supervision ofUniversité Côte d'Azur,Côte d'Azur Observatory and CNRS, inNice (France). He is also a Global Fellow of theUniversity of Tokyo.[1][2][3][4]
Michel began his advanced education with a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and Space Techniques in 1993 where after he moved to the study of asteroids. He received his PhD in 1997 for a thesis titled "Dynamical evolution of Near-Earth Asteroids".
He is specialist of the physical properties and the collisional and dynamical evolution of asteroids. His researches focus on the collisional processes between asteroids, the origin ofnear-Earth objects,binary asteroids, their physical properties, their response to various processes (impacts, tidal encounters, shaking) as a function of their internal and surface properties, and the risks of impacts with the Earth.
His work was notably the first to produce simulations that fully represent the process of an asteroid's destruction by collision with another object, calculating not only the fragmentation of the asteroid due to the impact but also the gravitational interactions of the fragments formed and their possible re-accumulations. The numerical simulations by Patrick Michel and his colleagues confirmed in particular that asteroid families (around twenty distinct groups of objects identified in the region between Mars and Jupiter, known as theasteroid belt) are each the result of the destruction of aparent body (up to several hundred kilometres in diameter). They also suggest that most second-generation asteroids (derived from a larger body) are aggregates rather than monolithic rocks, which explains the low bulk densities measured by observations.
His results have been the subject of more than 600 publications, 108000 reads and 18000 citations in refereed international journals, and have been featured on the covers of bothScience[5] in 2001 andNature[6] in 2003.
In particular, Patrick contributed to the development of a digital model of porous body fragmentation[7] (comets, carbonaceous asteroids), validated by laboratory impact experiments conducted in Japan.[8] His research published in Nature in 2008 also provided an explanation for the origin of smallbinary asteroids, which make up 15% of the asteroid population, and their particular physical properties, notably the shape of the central body.[9]
Michel is also deeply involved in several space missions and mission concepts devoted to the investigation of the Solar System small bodies andasteroid hazard, also known asplanetary defence.
He belongs to the Near-Earth Object Mission Advisory Panel (NEOMAP) mandated byEuropean Space Agency (ESA) to recommend space missions devoted to a better understanding of the impact threat.[10] In 2004, the committee recommends theDon Quijote mission concept, which consists in making a test ofasteroid deflection by using the technique of an artificial impactor. This mission was studied at ESA until 2007.[11][12]
He was a co-chair of the science study team of theMarcoPolo-Rsample return mission during the assessment study phase (2011-2014) selected by ESA'sCosmic Vision programme (2015-2025). The objective was to bring back a sample from a primitivenear-Earth asteroid in partnership withNASA. The pre-phase A study took place from 2011 to 2014, but ESA did not select the project for launch.[13][14]
While Dr Andy Cheng is leading the American science team, Michel is leading the European science team ofAIDA, forAsteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment, an international space cooperation inspired by Don Quijote, a collaboration betweenESA andNASA aimed at deflecting thesecondary of the binary near-Earth asteroidDidymos using akinetic impactor.[15]
Patrick becomes then theprincipal investigator for ESA's Hera mission, which will measure the impact of NASA's DART mission as part of this first deflection test ofDimorphos that happened on 26 September 2022. The European mission will therefore measure for the first time the results of a very high-speed impact (size and morphology of the crater) and the internal properties of an asteroid that will be the smallest asteroid ever visited, with Dimorphos measuring about 160 metres in diameter. Patrick is also a member of the DART mission team.
Michel is a co-I on both theJAXAHayabusa2 and NASAOSIRIS-REx sample return missions to a primitive near-Earth asteroid. Hayabusa2 was launched in 2014 and OSIRIS-REx in 2016.[16][17]
Together withStephan Ulamec, they are the co-Principal Investigators ofIdefix, therover developed in partnership byCNES andDLR for theJAXAMartian Moons eXploration mission to return samples fromPhobos, a moon ofMars, which will be launched in 2026 to arrive on Phobos in 2029 and return to Earth in 2031, with a deployment of the rover to perform in-situ surface analyses in 2028.[18][19][20]
Together withMonica Lazzarin, Michel is the co-PI of the proposed ESARamses mission, a spacecraft that would rendezvous with(99942) Apophis before it passes Earth on Friday, 13 April 2029 and accompany the asteroid during the flyby to observe how it is warped and changed by our planet’s gravity. In 2025, this programme has received permission to begin preparatory work.[21][22][23][24]
He is also responsible of the Work Package on numerical simulations of collisions and asteroid deflection by a kinetic impactor in the European Consortiums NEOShield and NEOShield-2 funded, respectively, by theFP7 and theHorizon2020 framework programmes (2012-2017).[25][26][27]
He is the coordinator of theNEO-MAPP project, also under the Horizon2020 framework programme (2020-2023).[28][29]
He has wide involvement in international organisations and belongs to the Science Program Committee ofCNES (French space agency).
He has been elected Secretary of the Division 3 (Planetary Science) of theInternational Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2009-2012.[30]
He also belongs to the Action Team 14 (AT14) of theCOPUOS (forCommittee On the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space) at theUnited Nations aimed at recommending actions and an international organisation to deal with theasteroid impact threat and to the Steering Committee of the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) recommended by AT14, since it started in 2014. He is also representing IAWN within the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG).[31][32]
In 2023, he was first elected a Corresponding Member, then a full Member since June 2025, of theInternational Academy of Astronautics.[33][34]
In 2024, he was elected to the Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG), a NASA committee.[35] The SBAG's aim is to identify scientific priorities and opportunities for the exploration of asteroids, comets, interplanetary dust, small satellites, and Trans-Neptunian Objects.
Until 2024 he was the leader of his planetology team within theJoseph-Louis Lagrange Laboratory.
He actively contributes to public outreach and is regularly solicited by various media to participate in French TV shows, radio shows and magazine interviews, and to contribute to the writing of papers in popular journals on topics related to small celestial body hazards, space missions and planetary formation (cf. external links).
Michel is thelead editor of the bookAsteroids IV published in 2015 by theUniversity of Arizona Press.[36][37]
In 2023, he is also the author in French of an outreach science book called "A la rencontre des astéroïdes : missions spatiales et défense de la planète" that can be translated into "Encountering asteroids: space missions and defending the planet".[38]
Since 2024, he is contributing to a French podcast called Astroroches, discussing topics related to the little bodies, like their properties, their role in the history of the Solar System,planetary defence, and the space missions dedicated to them.[39]
In 2006 he received the "Young Researcher" prize from the FrenchSociety of Astronomy and Astrophysics.[40]
In 2012, he was awarded theCarl Sagan Medal from theAmerican Astronomical Society.[41]
In 2013 he was awarded theInternational Prize Paolo Farinella in Planetary Science from theUniversity of Pisa in recognition of his work on the collisional process.[42]
Asteroid (7561) PatrickMichel was named in his honour by theInternational Astronomical Union (IAU).[43]
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