Date: Thursday, June 13th, 2024 at 7:30 PM
Topic: NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft: Unravelling planet-formation and searching for a second Kuiper Belt.
Speaker: Dr. JJ Kavelaars
Location: AQ3159 in the Quad at SFU Burnaby Mountain Campus
Here is a link to the SFU room finder:
https://roomfinder.sfu.ca/apps/sfuroomfinder_web/?q=AQ3159
Bio: Dr. JJ Kavelaars is a Principle Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre, and the Head of the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre. Dr. Kavelaars searches the sky for outer solar system objects and has discovered dozens of satellites of the giant planets and over 1000 minor planets in the distant solar system. He is a co-lead of the Canada-France Ecliptic Plan Survey and the Outer Solar System Origin Survey and co-investigator on NASA’s New Horizons Kuiper Extended Mission. In 2022 Dr. Kavelaars won the Canadian Astronomical Society’s Dunlap Award for Innovation in Astronomical Instrumentation and Software in recognition of his contributions to the development of digital research infrastructure in astronomy, and the NRC Dan Wayner Award for outstanding achievement in Science and Technology in recognition of his contributions to the understanding our outer solar system.
Abstract: The New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto and the small Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth. The spacecraft is now nearly 60 astronomical units from the Sun and continuing to explore the outer solar system. Dr. Kavelaars will highlight what we think we have learned about planet formation from this mission, and what we still hope to discover about the very distant solar system.
Meet-up Link: https://www.meetup.com/astronomy-131/events/299223013/