May 14, 2019 – 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Victoria Conference Centre
Lecture Theatre, Level 1
Click here to register
ABOUT THE TALK
In July of 2015 the New Horizons spacecraft flew through the Pluto system, completing humanity’s reconnaissance of the classical planets. Pluto turned out to be a world of remarkable geologic diversity, and its surfaces display a range of ages, suggesting geologic activity of various forms has persisted for much of Pluto’s history. Images looking back at the sun through Pluto’s thin atmosphere led to the discovery of numerous haze layers, and it turns out Pluto has a blue sky. Pluto’s large moon Charon was active early in its life, with a very large cyrovolcanic event that covered large areas of the moon.
On January 1st of 2019 (yes this year!) New Horizons encountered its second target, a smaller Kuiper Belt Object approximately 30 km across that is 43 times farther from the sun than the Earth is. This is the farthest planetary body ever explored in detail by a spacecraft. We are in the beginning stages of understanding this unique world, but I will highlight what we have learned so far and present the latest images.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. Kelsi Singer is a senior research scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO and a Deputy Project Scientist on NASA’s New Horizons mission. Dr. Singer’s graduate work focused on the geology and geophysics of the icy moons around Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. She also studies impact cratering across the solar system (from Mercury to the Kuiper belt!).