Dong Lai, Professor of Astronomy

March 04, 2016

Professor Dong Lai joined the Cornell Astronomy faculty in the Fall of 1997 after three years as apostdoctoral fellow at Caltech. He has held visiting positions atthe Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Institute for Advanced Study, Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, National Astronomical Observatory of China, etc. On Friday, March 4th, he discussed "Extreme Planetary Systems" at Fuertes:

"Observations over the last decade have revealed exoplanetary systems that are completely different from our own Solar System. These extreme planetary systems are changing our view of planetary formation. Professor Lai focused on hot Jupiters, giant planets in close orbits around their host stars (period about 5 days). He also discussed planets around binary stars ('Tatooine')."

(Image Credit: NASA)

March 11, 2016

Galaxies come in a remarkable variety of shapes and sizes; some are red and some are blue. Exotic names describe some of them: the "Cigar"; the "Black-Eye"; the "Antennae". Additionally, while some galaxies inhabit the rich clusters of galaxies and have many thousands of neighbors, others exist in virtual isolation. During the course of their lifetimes, galaxies in such different environments are subjected to very a variety of interactions with their surroundings, sometimes triggering episodes of furious star formation or feeding their voracious central supermassive black holes. In this talk, we will discuss what the appearance of galaxies today can teach us about "extragalactic sociology": how their lives are affected by their environments.

(Image Credit: NASA)

Phil Nicholson, Professor of Astronomy

March 18, 2016

Professor Phil Nicholson researches the orbital dynamics of planetary ring systems and natural satellites, as well as infrared observational studies of planets, their satellites, and their rings. He is the editor-in-chief of the planetary science journal, Icarus, and has served on the Committees on Planetary and Lunar Exploration and on Astronomy and Astrophysics of the National Research Council, time assignment committees for the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, and scientific advisory committees for Arecibo and IPAC.

Professor Nicholson is very interested in the history of astronomy, and how the people of ancient world used tools to understand the universe around them. On Friday, March 18th, he will discuss the history of Bronze Age astronomy in the Celtic World. 

(Image Credit: Wikipedia)

Mason Peck, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

April 08, 2016

Join us for our fourth annual Yuri's Night Event at 7:30pm at Fuertes, celebrating human spaceflight and space exploration. The event's talk will be given by Professor Mason Peck, former Chief Technologist at NASA:

Where would you send a probe to search for life in the solar system? Probably somewhere with a warm water ocean. It turns out that Earth is not the only such place. There’s Europa, Jupiter’s icy moon that has more than double Earth’s water. This talk will describe NASA’s plans for a robotic Europa mission, which will conduct detailed reconnaissance during a number of close flybys in the 2020s to determine whether or not the conditions there are suitable for life as we understand it. It will use ice-penetrating radar and magnetometers to understand the depth and salinity of the ocean. And it will look at the heat signatures from plumes erupting from the surface, if they can be found. We’ll also talk about some more speculative mission concepts, some of which are being developed at Cornell: among them, a soft robotic rover that could slither through the ice and jet around underwater like a squid, and a soda-bottle-size spacecraft carrying aluminum nanoparticles that would explosively react with ice and water on impact, creating a plume to be analyzed by a satellite overhead.

Image Credit: NASA/Cornell

Dr. Paul Helfenstein, Cornell Astronomy Senior Research Associate

April 15, 2016

Join us in the Fuertes Observatory classroom at 7:30pm this Friday for a lecture by Dr. Paul Helfenstein titled NASA's Cassini Spacecraft Views the Active Moon Enceladus. NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been in orbit around Saturn since 2004, and has taken astonishing images of the Saturnian system; many scientific discoveries have been made by the orbiter. Dr. Helfenstein is a member of the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) Team, and will present a review of Cassini imaging camera results that show the unique geology and geyser activity on Enceladus. Enceladus likely has a liquid water ocean beneath its icy surface, and is therefore one of the best candidates to find alien life in the Solar System. 

(Image Credit: NASA/JPL)

Jonathan Lunine, David C. Duncan Professor of Astronomy

April 29, 2016

Professor Lunine is interested in how planets form and evolve, what processes maintain and establish habitability, and what kinds of exotic environments (methane lakes, etc.) might host a kind of chemistry sophisticated enough to be called "life".  He pursues these interests through theoretical modeling and participation in spacecraft missions.  He works with the radar and other instruments on Cassini, is co-investigator on the Juno mission launched in 2011 to Jupiter and on the near-infrared spectrometer under development for the Europa Multiple Flyby mission. He is on the science team for the James Webb Space Telescope, focusing on characterization of extrasolar planets and Kuiper Belt objects. Lunine is currently PI for a proposed mission to look for signs of life in Saturn's moon Enceladus, and has contributed to concept studies for a wide range of planetary and exoplanetary missions.

(Image Credit: NASA)

Dr. Ramses Ramirez, Carl Sagan Institute Research Associate

November 04, 2016

Over the past two decades, thousands of exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than our Sun) have been discovered by ground-based telescopes and space-telescopes (most famously the Kepler Space Telescope). Better technology is allowing astronomers to detect smaller and more extreme exoplanets than ever before, and the diversity of the planets discovered thus far is astonishing. Some of the most exciting findings have been the discovery of several rocky, "Earth-like" planets in the Habitable ("Goldilocks") Zones of their parent stars (i.e. ability for liquid water to exist on the surface). On November 4th in the Fuertes Observatory Classroom, Dr. Ramirez from Cornell's Carl Sagan Institute will discuss many of the intriguing planets found in the Habitable Zone, how they are being studied, and the prospect of possibly finding alien life on a planet light years away from the Earth.

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(Image Credit: NASA)

Professor Phil Nicholson, Cornell Astronomy Department

November 11, 2016

Due to its spectacular ring system, Saturn is probably the most iconic planet in the solar system, and is absolutely breathtaking when viewed through a modest sized telescope on a still night. Galileo first saw the planet and its rings through his small telescope in 1610, and described the planet as having "ears". As technology and our understanding of physics improved, Saturn's rings continued to perplex astronomers, and the system is still one of the most studied phenomena in the solar system. Launched in 1997, NASA's Cassini Spacecraft arrived at the Saturn system in 2004. Over the past decade, Cassini has returned a plethora of data on Saturn, its remarkable moons, and the spectacularly complex rings. On November 11th in the Fuertes Classroom, Professor Phil Nicholson will discuss many of the fascinating things that Cassini has discovered about the ring system, and how it has changed our understanding of how planetary ring systems form and evolve. 

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(Image Credit: NASA)

Dr. Siddharth Hegde, Carl Sagan Institute Research Associate

December 02, 2016

Are we alone? Or are there other worlds out there that can support life? The field of exoplanet research has seen unprecedented progress over the last decade with over two thousand planets being detected outside our Solar System. Further more, this number is expected to rise exponentially over the next few years. Recent advances on this front suggest that small, Earth-mass, planets are abound in our galaxy with many of them thought to lie in the host star’s habitable zone where the conditions on the planet are optimal to have liquid water on the surface. This realization, coupled with the ongoing discovery of new organisms on Earth in environments previously thought to be inhospitable for life, suggests that extraterrestrial life could be more common than previously thought. In this talk, Dr. Hegde will explore some of the methods that can be used in characterizing an Earth-like planet for potential habitability and life by providing a link between geomicrobiology and observational astronomy.

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(Image Credit: NASA)