When
3:45 p.m., May 6, 2014
Where
Kuiper Space Sciences 312
Dr. Leslie Young
Principal Scientist
Southwest Research Institute
NASA's New Horizons Mission to Pluto: Plans for the 2015 flyby
Pluto and its moons are members of the Kuiper Belt, a third zone of the solar system beyond Neptune that provides clues to the formation and evolution of our solar system. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will begin its encounter observations of Pluto in early next year, with the closest approach on July 14, 2015. The New Horizons instrument suite and encounter operations were designed to study the surfaces, atmospheres, and plasma environments of Pluto and it's moons, to answer questions about the history of the Kuiper Belt and the ongoing physical processes. I will review the observations planned at Pluto, including high-resolution maps, resolved near-IR spectra, UV airglow and occultations, radio occultations and radiometry, and in situ plasma and dust measurements, and relate these to long-standing and newly uncovered mysteries in the Pluto system.
Host: Tommi Koskinen
Principal Scientist
Southwest Research Institute
NASA's New Horizons Mission to Pluto: Plans for the 2015 flyby
Pluto and its moons are members of the Kuiper Belt, a third zone of the solar system beyond Neptune that provides clues to the formation and evolution of our solar system. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will begin its encounter observations of Pluto in early next year, with the closest approach on July 14, 2015. The New Horizons instrument suite and encounter operations were designed to study the surfaces, atmospheres, and plasma environments of Pluto and it's moons, to answer questions about the history of the Kuiper Belt and the ongoing physical processes. I will review the observations planned at Pluto, including high-resolution maps, resolved near-IR spectra, UV airglow and occultations, radio occultations and radiometry, and in situ plasma and dust measurements, and relate these to long-standing and newly uncovered mysteries in the Pluto system.
Host: Tommi Koskinen
General
LPL Colloquium
Undergraduate
Graduate