J. Michael Picone

The space physics community lost a distinguished colleague with the passing of J. Michael Picone on 5 January 2025, following a short battle with cancer.

Mike was born on 12 April 1948 in Galveston, Texas. He graduated summa cum laude from Rice University in 1970 and received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1974.

During his 50-year career, Mike worked at several institutions, including a brief stint in the US Army followed by nearly three decades at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) beginning in 1980. At NRL, Mike spent 10 years in the Center for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics, studying charged particle beams, lightning, combustion, and turbulence generation in compressible flows.

Following his transfer to NRL’s Space Science Division in 1990, Mike—the consummate physicist—turned his substantial scientific skills to the study of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Mike became head of the Upper Atmospheric Modeling section, where he led a team of outstanding scientists in advancing understanding and specification of neutral and ionospheric densities. Those endeavors included the continuing development of the MSIS atmospheric temperature and density model and the Horizontal Wind model in collaboration with Alan Hedin, who created the models at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Mike applied his towering mathematical skills to construction of robust techniques for transforming ultraviolet remote sensing measurements into thermospheric neutral and ionospheric composition. He developed fast and accurate methodologies for the production of orbit-based total mass density from two-line orbital element sets, using the entire unclassified US Space Command Space Object Catalog to substantiate and validate his creative approach. The work formed the basis of his team’s uncovering a secular decrease in the thermospheric mass density over the previous 30 years, consistent with the predicted effect of increasing carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere.

Mike also invented similarity transformations for fitting atmospheric data and models. He discovered a clear geometric explanation for several puzzling characteristics of the semiannual oscillation throughout the atmosphere. His research resulted in more than six patents and well more than 100 papers in journals, books, and proceedings on such diverse topics as aeronomy, discrete inverse theory, numerical methods, high-performance computation, plasma physics, fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, and experimental nuclear physics. His 2002 NRLMSISE-00 paper is presently the most cited paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics, with more than 2700 citations.

Following his retirement from NRL in 2008, Mike continued his upper atmospheric physics research as an NRL Emeritus and as a scientist in the physics department at George Mason University. In retirement, Mike also pursued his long-term avocation in quantum mechanics by publishing a recent paper on the observation problem in quantum mechanics.

We, Mike’s friends and colleagues, were shocked by his unexpected passing and saddened immensely by the loss of our valued colleague, friend, and scientist. Mike’s affable and inquisitive demeanor, great sense of humor, inviting personality, and humility made collaboration with him a delight. His deep knowledge, unabashed love of physics, and his mathematical and computational skills were a tremendous resource that he shared unselfishly with all. This generosity extended to his role as mentor. He regarded all the scientists he collaborated with, from graduate students and postdocs to senior scientists, as equal partners in the endeavor, thereby fostering a welcoming environment in which creativity and professional development thrived. The thoroughness and rigor with which he approached any problem were inspirational to his coworkers. When you knocked on his door, you were as likely to find him submerged in a book or paper as typing on his computer. His idea of beach reading was a book on numerical method or quantum mechanics. When discussing physics or mathematics with Mike, you knew you were in trouble when he said, “This is a stupid question, but I will ask it anyway.” It was never stupid, but invariably insightful, profound, and challenging.

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