LECTURES & TALKS

Black Holes and Other Dark Matters Marc Kamionkowski of Johns Hopkins University In February 2016, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced discovery of the merger of two black holes, each of which weighed around 30 times the mass of the Sun. In addition to being the first detection of gravitational waves, it was also the first observational evidence of stellar mass black holes above 25 solar masses. Shortly thereafter, it was speculated that these black holes might make up the dark matter that has long been known to exist in galaxies (like our own Milky Way). Dr. Kamionkowski will discuss this possibility and explain why this hypothesis may or may not work. Host: Dr. Frank Summers Recorded live on Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. More information: http://hubble.stsci.edu/about_us/public_talks/

Gerald Voecks An Alternative, Broad Scope to ISRU Plans for Mars From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

H. Raven Rose Mars or Bust: How Science Fiction Films Will Promote Mars Colonization Reality From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Dr. Julio Francisco Dantas de Rezende Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Habitat Marte - Brazil From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Kent Nebergall Settling Mars while Protecting Science and Exobiology From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Kent Nebergall Reverse Engineering SpaceX - Accelerate Like Elon From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Heidi Hecht Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain as an Interplanetary Financial System From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Art Harman Liberty in Space From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Art Harman President Trump's Space Policy From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Art Harman "LOP-G" or "Boots on the Poles?" Which is the right path to Mars? From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Hannah Earnshaw In Search of a Martian Faith From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

In HD1080p/30fps Host: Martin Elvis Speaker: Jason Wright (Penn State) Precise radial velocity work, responsible for the lion's share of exoplanet discovery pre-Kepler, remains a cornerstone of exoplanetary research and an essential component of validation and characterization of transiting planets such as those that will be discovered by TESS. It is an important tool for the discovery of long-period planets amenable to direct imaging, determining the architecture of exoplanetary systems, conducting a census of the planetary systems closest to the Sun, and the discovery of new transiting planets including temperate terrestrial planets amenable for atmospheric transmission spectroscopy. This work will be performed by a new generation of extremely precise Doppler spectrographs. In the optical, they will have factors of a few better instrumental precision than the current generation and an order of magnitude below the amplitude of stellar noise ('jitter') in even the quietest stars, which moves the problem of sensitivity from the realm engineering to one of stellar astrophysics and astrostatistics. In the infrared, these instruments will probe new regimes, including terrestrial planets in the Habitable Zones of the coolest, closest stars to the Sun. I will focus on two such instruments built at Penn State, the NN-EXPLORE NEID optical spectrograph which will be a facility instrument at Kitt Peak available for public use, and HPF, an infrared spectrograph at the Hobby-Eberly Telescope focused on work with M dwarf planet hosts.

Description: At the center of the Earth, matter is crushed under pressures millions of times higher than we experience here on the surface. Pressures in the cores of stars and giant planets are even more extreme. To understand how the Earth, Jupiter, and even larger planets outside our solar system came to be, we need to understand the behavior of materials in these extreme conditions. Here at SLAC, we have found ways to push matter to these tremendous temperatures and pressures, if only for very short periods of time. This lecture will describe some of the surprising and even bizarre states of matter we can now create in the laboratory. About the Speaker: Emma McBride is a Panofsky Fellow in SLAC’s High Energy Density Science Division. She received her PhD in 2014 from the University of Edinburgh, where she investigated how high pressure can cause simple metals to behave in unexpected ways. She spent two years at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, as a postdoctoral researcher, and then came to SLAC as a Peter Paul Ewald fellow. She has developed dynamic shock compression techniques that can drive solids to extreme pressures, as well as methods for analyzing these massively crushed materials using X-ray lasers at DESY and SLAC.

Planetary scientist Dr. Fran Bagenal of the University of Colorado – Boulder discusses how the Juno mission has changed our views of Jupiter. This was the second presentation in the Lunar and Planetary Institute’s 2018–2019 Cosmic Exploration Speaker Series, “The LPI at 50: A Half Century of Solar System Exploration.”

Kepler was NASA’s first mission dedicated to the search for planets around other stars, called exoplanets. The first exoplanet was discovered just 20 years prior to launch, and only a few hundred more were discovered in that time, with most of them inhabitable and more similar to gas giants like Jupiter than Earth. In the nearly ten years since Kepler’s launch, data from the spacecraft has resulted in the detection of thousands of exoplanets, with a multitude of them the size of Earth or smaller, and many of them at the right distance from their star to possibly support life. Thanks to data from Kepler, we now have greater understanding of two terms of the Drake Equation that had eluded us for fifty-seven years --- we now know there are even more planets than stars in our galaxy and that a significant number of them could have the right conditions to be habitable. Thanks to Kepler, we know that Earth is not alone. The odds of humanity not being alone in the cosmos seem high. But there are still a lot of big terms in that simple little Drake Equation to figure out. The search will continue with new space telescopes like TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), and future generation of large space telescopes like JWST (James Webb Space Telescope). We invited Natalie Batalha, Professor at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Doug Caldwell, Senior Research Scientist at the SETI Institute to discuss the state of the search for exoplanets. What did we learn from the Kepler mission? What are the most exotic planetary systems discovered so far? What are the chances of finding extraterrestrial life in the next decade using new telescopes? These are the questions that will be addressed during our special SETI Talk on the end of the Kepler spacecraft on November 13 at 7pm at SRI International, Menlo Park, CA. Join us for a special tribute to the Kepler spacecraft.

Dr. Robert Zubrin (giving a presentation written by Craig Davidson) Why a lunar base is better than the proposed Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway (LOP-G) to advance human space exploration From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Dr. Julio Francisco Dantas de Rezende Sustainability in Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) Learning for Mars Settlements From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Bill Lewis Earning Cultural Support From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

60 years after Sputnik: a critical juncture in humanity’s use of space The use of space for civil (e.g., scientific), commercial, and military purposes has grown enormously in recent years. Near-Earth space is extremely valuable, but it is also very vulnerable, and can easily be ruined by a small number of destructive events. The most valuable orbits and radio bands are becoming crowded. Placing weapons in space could threaten existing space assets and would invite the use of ground-, air- and space-based weapons against such weapons or other space assets, with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity’s ability to use space. Unless we manage the threats posed by crowding, orbiting debris, and deliberate destructive actions, we will lose the use of space. A combination of informal cooperation and formal agreements seems the best approach for preserving the usefulness of space. Fred Lamb is a Professor of Physics Emeritus at Illinois, a Core Faculty Member in the Program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security, and an expert on space policy, military uses of space, missile defenses, and anti-satellite weapons. His current scientific research focuses on problems in high energy and relativistic astrophysics.

Sam Quinn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) began science operations in July 2018, and over the next two years will survey most of the sky in search of small planets transiting the nearest stars, the brightness of which enables studies of planetary compositions and atmospheric properties. These will likely be the planets on which we focus our search for life through the detection of biosignature gases in the planets' atmospheres. However, TESS is not just an exoplanet mission; by monitoring the brightness variations of every object in the sky, TESS will support research at all scales, including Solar System, stellar, and extragalactic astrophysics. In this talk, I will describe the TESS mission and the science it will enable, and I will close by presenting some of the first exciting results to emerge from the mission. Photo credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Original music by Mark C. Petersen, Loch Ness Productions. Used with permission. Animations used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Photo credit: David Glenn

From Scientific Idea to Published Results (and Everything in Between!) Bill Blair of Johns Hopkins University When an astronomer has an idea for a Hubble observation, what has to happen for that research to become a reality? This talk will give a “behind the scenes” look at what astronomers need to do to pursue science with Hubble, and what STScI has to do to turn accepted programs into actual data for the astronomer. There are myriad steps and hurdles along the way, and everything has to pan out properly to get to the finish line. When all goes to plan, the data will address the original question, or maybe provide new and different insights than anticipated, spawning ideas for new observations. The next time you see a stunning Hubble press release, this talk will provide a better understanding of what had to transpire to make it happen! Host: Dr. Frank Summers Recorded live on Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. More information: http://hubble.stsci.edu/about_us/public_talks/

Hear all about NASA's next mission to Mars that lands November 26th. All Space Considered welcomes special guest Dr. Mark Panning from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory who will tell us all we need to know to get ready for the big NASA InSight landing only weeks away! Join us November 2 at 7:30 p.m. PDT in the Leonard Nimoy Theatre at Griffith Observatory.

In this public lecture, Fermilab physicist Dan Bauer explains what scientists know about dark matter, the mysterious, invisible stuff that accounts for most of the matter in the universe. After presenting evidence for the existence of dark matter, he describes some of the physics experiments that scientists build and operate to look for signals from dark matter particles. From going deep underground to operating equipment at temperatures close to absolute zero to operating the most powerful particle collider in the world, scientists are pushing technological boundaries in their quest to discover the building blocks of dark matter. This lecture was held at Fermilab in October 2018 as part of a worldwide series of events to celebrate Dark Matter Day. For more information visit https://www.darkmatterday.org

Dr. Claire Max (University of California Observatories) Oct. 3, 2018 When light from space enters Earth’s atmosphere, it is distorted and displaced, something our eyes perceive as “twinkling.” Adaptive optics can remove a great deal of this distortion, essentially restoring much of the detail we’ve been robbed off in our view of the star and galaxies. Dr. Max, a world-renowned pioneer in this technique, shows us how modern lasers allow her to do this very precisely. And she discusses how this technique is giving us sharper views of such cosmic events as the collision of nearby galaxies.

The cosmological standard model has been overwhelmingly successful at describing our observed universe. In this model, an accelerating, spatially flat universe underwent a hot, dense, early phase of expansion. That hot Big-Bang produced light elements such as hydrogen and helium via nucleosynthesis and generated the relic cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. However, this theory has a problem: the CMB we observe is uniform to 0.01% across the sky, despite apparently being composed of roughly 40,000 causally disconnected patches. Within the cosmological standard model, this measurement is inconsistent with cause-and-effect! In this talk, I will describe how an earlier epoch of accelerated expansion called “inflation” solves this horizon problem, while giving rise to quantum mechanical fluctuations that seed the structures observed in our Universe today.

NASA Night Sky Network members joined us on October 16, 2018 to hear Robert Pappalardo bring us up to date on the Europa Clipper mission. Jupiter's moon Europa may be a habitable world.  Galileo spacecraft data suggest that a global ocean exists beneath its frozen ice surface. A scarcity of large craters argues for a young surface and recent geological activity, and magnetometry implies that a salty ocean persists today. Europa's ocean and surface are inherently linked: tidal deformation of the floating ice shell could generate stresses that fracture and deform the surface to create ridges and bands, while dark spots, domes, and chaos are probably related to tidally driven ice convection and partial melting. Europa's activity may permit the "ingredients" necessary for life – water, chemistry, and energy – to be present within the satellite's ocean. NASA is planning a robotic mission to explore Europa and investigate its habitability, employing a highly capable suite of remote sensing and in situ instruments on a spacecraft that will make multiple close flybys.   The Europa Clipper mission will interrogate the moon’s ice shell, ocean, composition, and geology including any current activity.  This talk will summarize both our state of knowledge about Europa and the science potential of the Europa Clipper mission to explore Europa and investigate its habitability.  About Robert Pappalardo Dr. Robert Pappalardo is the Project Scientist for NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.  He has also served as the Project Scientist for the Cassini Equinox (first extended) Mission at Saturn, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal.  He has served as a member of the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board and as Co-Chair of its Committee on the Origins and Evolution of Life. He received his B.A. in Geological Sciences from Cornell University in 1986, and he obtained his Ph.D. in Geology from Arizona State University in 1994. His research focuses on processes that have shaped the icy satellites of the outer solar system, especially Europa and the role of its probable subsurface ocean.

Frank Close looks at how observations from galaxy rotation and gravitational lensing can imply the existence of dark matter. Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Watch the full lecture: http://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch/1993/the-cosmic-onion/an-hour-to-make-the-universe?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_term=description Frank Close gave the 1993 lectures "The Cosmic Onion" tracing a hundred years of discovery and invention In his final lecture, Frank Close looks at the parts of the universe that are invisible to us. Watch the full series: http://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures/watch/1993/the-cosmic-onion?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_term=description The Ri is on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter

Teams will demonstrate an understanding of stellar evolution in normal & starburst galaxies.

Teams will demonstrate an understanding of stellar evolution in normal & starburst galaxies.

This presentation is an overview of the content and resources for the National Science Olympiad (NSO) Division B 2019 Solar System Event.

This presentation is an overview of the content and resources for the National Science Olympiad (NSO) Division B 2019 Solar System Event.

How much energy do you need to create enough protons to create a star? Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Watch the talk: https://youtu.be/IF4UhElRUFg Geraint F. Lewis is a Welsh astrophysicist at the University of Sydney. He's best known for his work on dark energy, gravitational lensing and galactic cannibalism. This talk and Q&A was filmed in the Ri on 24 July 2018. --- A very special thank you to our Patreon supporters who help make these videos happen, especially: Alessandro Mecca, Ashok Bommisetti, Avrahaim Chein, bestape, Elizabeth Greasley, Greg Nagel, Lester Su, Manish Upmanyu, Rebecca Pan, Robert D Finrock and Will Knott. --- The Ri is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution and Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter

Come with us on a very final journey as we wander forwards in time at breakneck speeds to see what happens at the very end of the universe. Subscribe for regular science videos: http://bit.ly/RiSubscRibe Will there forever be stars in the sky? Will humanity roam the cosmos for eternity? What does the future hold for our Universe? This is a journey through space and time, from galactic collisions and hyperactive black holes, on to the death of the last star. Watch the Q&A: https://youtu.be/kTbw2XceDTM Geraint F. Lewis is a Welsh astrophysicist at the University of Sydney. He's best known for his work on dark energy, gravitational lensing and galactic cannibalism. He also has a cool YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnPhuVSN3-gEeeSMyIMeDeA/about This talk and Q&A was filmed in the Ri on 24 July 2018. --- A very special thank you to our Patreon supporters who help make these videos happen, especially: Alessandro Mecca, Ashok Bommisetti, Avrahaim Chein, bestape, Elizabeth Greasley, Greg Nagel, Lester Su, Manish Upmanyu, Rebecca Pan, Robert D Finrock and Will Knott. --- The Ri is on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheRoyalInstitution and Twitter: http://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/ Our editorial policy: http://www.rigb.org/home/editorial-policy Subscribe for the latest science videos: http://bit.ly/RiNewsletter

Chasing Supernovae with Kepler Gautham Narayan of the Space Telescope Science Institute The Kepler spacecraft launched in 2009 with the goal of discovering exoplanets. However, its highly precise brightness measurements can be used for much more science. When Kepler was repurposed as the K2 mission, one team of astronomers decided to use it to hunt for supernovas. By catching the critical first few hours of an exploding star, scientists can learn more about these colossal blasts. Host: Dr. Frank Summers Recorded live on Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. More information: http://hubble.stsci.edu/about_us/public_talks/

Dr. Robert Pappalardo of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory visits All Space Considered to discuss the lure of Europa and describe the upcoming Europa Clipper mission for which he is the Project Scientist. Subscribe now for more All Space Considered clips: https://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=griffithobservatory All Space Considered is Griffith Observatory’s live science program that is free and open to the public, held the first Friday of every month. Watch All Space Considered videos: https://www.youtube.com/griffithobservatory Learn more about All Space Considered on our official site: http://griffithobservatory.org/asc/all_space.html Follow All Space Considered on SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/allspacecnsdrd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AllSpaceConsidered/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allspaceconsidered/ -Disclaimer- WE DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE, VIDEOS, MUSICAL MATERIAL OR PICTURES PRESENT THAT WERE NOT CREATED DIRECTLY BY GRIFFITH OBSERVATORY OR ITS AFFILIATES, ALL CREDIT FOR THIS MATERIAL GOES TO THE ORIGINAL ARTISTS, CREATORS AND COMPOSERS. Fair Use: "Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

HD1080P 30 fps Hierarchical gravitational contraction: a unified scenario for the structure, dynamics, and star-forming activity of molecular clouds. September 20, 2018 Phillips Auditorium Enrique Vazquez Semadeni Host: Phil Myers & Qizhou Zhang Abstract: Diverse numerical and observational evidence suggests that star-forming molecular clouds (MCs) may be in a process of global gravitational contraction. As originally proposed by Hoyle (1953), in such a regime, a sequential destabilization of successively smaller masses should occur, leading to fragmentation of the cloud and ultimately to the formation of stellar-mass objects, when the equation of state diverts from isothermal. After disposing of some early objections to the global gravitational contraction of MCs, I discuss how this mechanism naturally explains the observed apparent virialization of clouds and their substructures, the appearance of Larson's relations when column-density thresholds are used to define the structures, the ubiquitous formation of filamentary structures that funnel material to so-called "hubs", the observed morphology of the magnetic field around the filaments, the scattered nature of low-mass star-forming regions, the acceleration of the star formation rate in MCs, the observed SFR-mass relations at both the local (cloud) level and the global (galactic) level, and the structure of the embedded stellar associations, such as their fractal structure and the observed radial mass and age gradients. I conclude by comparing to the prevailing "gravo-turbulent" scenario, and note a few common misconceptions about turbulence.

In September 2017, some of strongest solar activity of Solar Cycle 24 impacted Mars. This was the largest space weather event observed at Mars simultaneously in orbit by MAVEN and Mars Express, and at the surface by the Mars Science Laboratory. In this MAVEN outreach webinar from September 19, 2018, Dr. Christina O. Lee of the Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley describes how the solar eruptive activity impacted the space environment around Mars, including its atmosphere and the radiation environment at the surface. Access this and all previous MAVEN outreach webinars, here: http://bit.ly/MAVENOW.

John Swinbank (Deputy Project Manager, LSST Data Management) presenting on the ' Overview & Status of LSST' at the Solar System Science Collaboration's LSST Solar System Readiness Sprint - July 2018

Join Griffith Observatory's All Space Considered as we welcome Dr. Robert Pappalardo, Project Scientist for Europa Clipper at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Pappalardo's research focuses on processes that have shaped the icy satellites of the outer solar system, especially Europa and the role of its probable subsurface ocean. Dr. Pappalardo walks us through the next mission to Jupiter, Europa Clipper. The LiveStream broadcast will begin as All Space Considered begins at 7:30 p.m., PDT.

Original air date: Thursday, Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. PT (10 p.m. ET, 0200 UTC) As NASA celebrates its 60th anniversary, this panel discussion will look back over the decades at how far our robotic exploration has come, and consider where we might be headed. Much has changed about the way we explore space in the 60 years since NASA began operations on Oct. 1, 1958. Today’s robotic spacecraft are beginning to experiment with laser communications, artificial intelligence and 3-D printed parts. But some of the first spacecraft the U.S. sent to the Moon included parts made of wood; some used to record data on motorized magnetic tape recorders. Despite all the advances, one thing hasn’t changed: we still rely on robotic spacecraft to extend our senses above and beyond Earth and to blaze a trail as precursors for human explorers. Panelists: Rob Manning Julie Webster Charles Norton Anne Marinan Moderator: Preston Dyches, JPL Public Outreach Specialist Follow us on your favorite social media platforms for updates @NASAJPL.

This presentation focuses on understanding the process of stellar evolution by using a series of materials, resources and investigations specifically designed for Science Olympiad coaches and teams.

This presentation focuses on understanding the process of stellar evolution by using a series of materials, resources and investigations specifically designed for Science Olympiad coaches and teams.

MarsVR is the Mars Society's new multi-phase effort to do serious research using Virtual Reality technologies, starting with the creation of a crew training environment for use with the Mars Desert Research Station. This demo of our Phase 1 MDRS Crew Training Sim was presented to 260+ attendees at our Saturday night banquet. The demo was very well-received, as you can tell from this video! More details on the project: http://marsvr.io Matterport Scans available: http://mdrs.marssociety.org/matterport-scans/ Presenters: James Burk, IT Director, The Mars Society and Program Manager for MarsVR. Shannon Norrell, Dir. of Engineering, MarsVR, and Co-Founder of HP's Mars Home Planet. (Note: we are not affiliated with HP) From the 21st Annual International Mars Society Convention, held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern California from Aug 23-26, 2018. The four-day International Mars Society Convention brings together leading scientists, engineers, aerospace industry representatives, government policymakers and journalists to talk about the latest scientific discoveries, technological advances and political-economic developments that could help pave the way for a human mission to the planet Mars.

Enjoy a lively discussion from expert scientists about climates, weather, and environments on planets in the solar system and beyond!

Watch Professor Farisa Morales talk about planetary system formation, leading us to explore the uniqueness of our Solar System. The briefing also includes information about the tools and techniques scientists use to study these systems. Professor Morales also speaks about the formation of planets in disks, and ongoing efforts to detect them.

On the Potential Origins of Cryovolcanism in the Solar System. A summary of our knowledge about cryovolcanism and information about the composition and rheology of relevant ice system. Presented by Christine McCarthy, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Like Australian table wines, Cryovolcanism has been poo-poohed, because of a perceived negative buoyancy problem. Here we point out that several basaltic planets have overcome far worse barriers, and calculate a scenario for cyrovolcanism on Pluto. Presented by Patrick McGovern, Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Pluto's moon Charon offered the first clear (ground-based) evidence for the ammonia-water volcanism predicted long ago by J. S. Lewis. New Horizons then obtained compelling evidence for an ammonia-bearing cryovolcanic plain. But how did it get there? Presented by William McKinnon, Washington University in St. Louis.

Study of diverse cryomagmatic processes based on the system H2O-CO2-MgSO4 with application to Europa. The type of the crystals formed is related to volume-temperature changes, while their morphology is associated with surface geological features. Presented by Victoria Munoz-Iglesias, Centro de Astrobiologia.

Europa, amongst other icy bodies in our solar system, exhibits a suite of surface features with aligned chemistry indicative of transport between the ice-shell and ocean. Presented by Divya Peddinti, Arizona State University.