Asteroids, Comets and the Origin of the Oceans (2:15 - 3:15 pm)
Abstract
The speaker and his group have discovered a new class of solar system body that may be implicated in the origin of the oceans. The speaker will describe some of the objects in this class and present the evidence concerning their volatile natures. He will also provide a sweeping and non-technical context for the delivery of water and other volatiles to the Earth and other rocky planets.
About the speaker
Prof David Jewitt was born in London where he became fascinated by the night sky and, especially, by the contents of the solar system, at a young age. He received his PhD in Planetary Science and Astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1983. He was Assistant Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Astronomer and Professor at the University of Hawaii. He is currently Professor and Director of the Institute for Planets and Exoplanets at University of California at Los Angeles.
Prof Jewitt’s current research interests include outer solar system, solar system formation, physical properties of comets, comet - asteroid interrelations and submillimeter properties of comets and young stars. His favorite quote, and the one that best describes his work, is by Churchill: "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm".
Prof Jewitt is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. In 2012, he received the Shaw Prize in Astronomy (with Prof Jane Luu) and the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (with Prof Jane Luu and Prof Michael Brown) for the discovery of and characterization of trans-Neptunian bodies including the Kuiper Belt.
The Power of Observations: Discovering the Kuiper Belt (3:20 - 4:20 pm)
Abstract
Before 1992, astronomers believed that the inventory of the solar system was complete: 9 planets and their satellites, lots of asteroids and comets at or inside the orbit of Jupiter, and very far away, comets in the Oort cloud. The region beyond the planets was thought to be empty. The speaker and Prof David Jewitt decided to take a look to see if this was true, and happily for them (but not for Pluto supporters), it turned out that the outer solar system was full of things, moving in orbits no one has ever dreamed of. This talk is about the discovery of the Kuiper Belt, the population of objects beyond Neptune.
About the speaker
Prof Jane Luu was born in Vietnam where she received essentially no science education until she moved to the US at the age of 11. She received her PhD in Planetary Astronomy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1990. She did her postdoctoral work at various institutions including the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University. She was Assistant Professor at Harvard University and Professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She is currently a member of the Technical Staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Her current goal is to use engineering techniques to solve astronomy problems.
In 2012, Prof Luu received the Shaw Prize in Astronomy (with Prof David Jewitt) and the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics (with Prof David Jewitt and Prof Michael Brown) for the discovery of and characterization of trans-Neptunian bodies including the Kuiper Belt. The asteroid 5430 Luu is named in her honor.
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