My name is Ngoc Truong (pronounced ‘gnoc’ like gnocchi). I am a Vietnamese planetary scientist, currently employed as a postdoctoral researcher at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, following my Ph.D. in Planetary Science from Cornell University. I am interested in understanding the early formation of the solar system and how its signatures are reflected in the present-day compositions of planetary bodies—whether in the atmospheres of giant planets, in small bodies that formed in the outer solar system (such as Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids, comets), or even beyond (like interstellar dusts).
Much like an archaeologist, I reconstruct a historical timeline of how planetary systems evolved from the primordial state of the Sun’s formation in our galaxy. This work informs our search for potentially habitable environments both within our own solar system (i.e. the icy moons of giant planets) and beyond.
“While I pursue many of these questions through theoretical modeling, I place strong emphasis on the synergy between theory and observation.”
My work integrates a wide range of observations, including data from spacecraft missions to various planetary bodies (New Horizons, Rosetta, Hayabusa-2, OSIRIS-REx, Cassini, Galileo, Juno), the Sun (returned solar wind samples, solar neutrinos, helioseismology), as well as meteoritic and astronomical observations.
Currently, I am also actively contributing to spacecraft missions as a member of Juno’s Origins Working Group and the Europa Clipper mission through its MASPEX mass spectrometer.
