Author: Mike Hotka

Our September meeting is next Thursday, September 17th at 7 pm. The speaker is Dr. Fran Bagenal and her topic is “Jupiter’s Four Galilean Moon”.

Jupiter’s Four Galilean Moons

After changing our view of the cosmos with Galileo’s discovery in 1610, the four large moons of Jupiter – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – have been challenging our scientific understanding of planetary bodies every since. Fran will present our current understanding of the workings of these four very different objects and outline the plans for their future exploration, including NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and ESA’s JUICE mission.

Fran Bagenal Biography:

Most of us know Fran as she has been our speaker quite a few times over the last 15 or so years. She is a Professor Emerita of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder and a senior research scientist at LASP. She studies the magnetic fields and plasmas around planets—the charged particles trapped in those fields and how they interact with moons and atmospheres.

She has been a plasma scientist on Voyager, Galileo, Deep Space 1, and Cassini. On NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto she served as co-investigator and particles-and-plasma science team lead. On the Juno mission to Jupiter she is co-investigator and co-chair of the magnetospheric working group—again leading the plasma investigation.

Thanks again to Gary Garzone for scheduling yet another wonderful speaker!!

The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501. The meeting starts at 7 pm.

Join Zoom Meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87424654800?pwd=YKTK74WGX0ZabdjWiMu3q8mXE0cHar.1

Meeting chat link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/launch/jc/87424654800

Meeting ID: 874 2465 4800

Passcode: 914041

Opening New Windows to Our Universe

John Bally, Professor Emeritus, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder

We are the first generation to see the Universe in all 
wavelengths of the spectrum.   Within the last decade, we 
opened new ways to see the Cosmos using waves of gravity.  
I will show new images taken with our best telescopes such 
as the Hubble (HST), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),
and the Atacama Larger Millimeter Array (ALMA). I will 
discuss how “multi-messenger” astronomy is changing 
our understanding of cosmic structure and evolution, 
and the birth of galaxies, stars, and planets.

Biography:

 John Bally is Professor Emeritus in the Department of 
Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at the 
University of Colorado in Boulder.  He earned his PhD
from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst on one
of the first radio telescopes sensitive to mm-wavelengths.  
He spend 11 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the group
that discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background before
moving to CU Boulder in 1992 where he continues his 
research in star and planet formation, the interstellar 
medium, and cosmic evolution.  He continues to use facilities
such as the JWST, HST, and ALMA.  He operates his own
observatory in Breckenridge, Colorado, where he has a 
PlaneWave CDK20.

Location:

The meeting will start at 7 pm in the basement of the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, Colorado 80501.

Beyond Bennu: OSIRIS-APEX and the Exploration of Near-Earth Asteroid Apophis

The OSIRIS-APophis EXplorer mission is the second life of one of NASA’s great success stories in planetary science. The spacecraft, launched in 2016 as OSIRIS-REx, spent two years orbiting the carbon-rich asteroid Bennu before collecting a sample and delivering it safely to Earth in September 2023. After dropping off its cargo, the spacecraft and its instruments remained healthy, so NASA extended the mission and gave it a new target and a new name: asteroid Apophis, named after the ancient Egyptian god of chaos, and OSIRIS-APEX. On April 13, 2029, the 340-meter-wide Apophis will fly past Earth at ~32,000 kilometers distance, closer than our highest-altitude satellites, making it the largest object to pass this near to Earth in recorded history. Earth’s gravitational pull is expected to alter the asteroid’s orbit, change how fast it spins, and possibly trigger quakes or landslides on its surface. OSIRIS-APEX will chase Apophis past the Earth and use Earth’s gravity to redirect the spacecraft toward a rendezvous with Apophis, beginning an 18-month science campaign in mid-2029. As part of that campaign, Apophis will be the first S-type asteroid to be characterized from orbit in the extended near infrared region (~2.7 – 4 µm) and by thermal infrared spectroscopy (5.7-100 µm). Near the mission’s end, the spacecraft will fire its thrusters to excavate surface material, allowing a look at the asteroid’s subsurface.

Dr. Vicky Hamilton is a geoscientist specializing in infrared spectroscopy of minerals, meteorites, and planetary samples. She has extensive experience with science and instrument operations on numerous NASA planetary science flight missions. She is the Deputy Principal Investigator of the Mars Odyssey THEMIS instrument and the L’TES instrument on the Lucy spacecraft. She was a Participating Scientist with the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity and is a Co-Investigator and Instrument Scientist for OTES on OSIRIS-REx and OSIRIS-APEX. She led the OSIRIS-REx Spectral Analysis Working Groups during operations and sample analysis was the Mission Sample Spectroscopy Scientist. Hamilton chaired the Panel on Mars for the most recent National Academies Decadal Survey in Planetary Science and just concluded a three-year term as the Chair of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, a community-based, interdisciplinary forum representing the interests of the Mars science community.

Title: 

Webb, Roman and HabWorlds – Space Telescopes at the Astronomical Frontier

Synopsis:

Join us for an evening with Dr. Gregory Wirth of BAE Systems on the remarkable technologies behind NASA’s current and future space telescopes. Learn how the pending Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope promises to change our ideas about dark matter and dark energy with a camera 100 times more powerful than those on Hubble and Webb. Get a glimpse into the future with NASA’s ambitious Habitable Worlds Observatory, designed to identify and study Earth-like exoplanets using cutting-edge optics technology.  And learn what new astronomical discoveries NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope is delivering with its astonishingly sharp infrared images of the universe.  This accessible talk is geared to all with an interest in astronomy.

Bio:

Dr. Gregory D. Wirth is an astronomer and Principal Systems Engineer at BAE Systems Space & Mission Systems in Boulder, Colorado.

He specializes in space-based astrophysics instrumentation and has contributed to major NASA missions, including helping commission the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). His work builds on BAE Systems’ (formerly Ball Aerospace) legacy in flagship observatories such as Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra.

He earned a Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with thesis research using early Hubble Space Telescope data. He previously spent 16 years as a support astronomer at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. 

Location:

The meeting will be at 7pm in the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501. 

Presentation

Setting up Remote Telescopes by Jim Pollock and Dustin Gibson

Summary

Jim Pollock will talk about his initial experiences setting up a Celestron 9.25 inch hyperstar telescope at the Starfront Observatories. 

Starfront Observatories is located in Rockwood, Texas which is in the hill country of Central Texas. It far from any major city lights and has near Bortle 1 skies. It also has fast and reliable internet essential for controlling remote telescopes. They now have over 600 scopes that have been installed since May 2024. 

Dustin Gibson, one of the co-founders of StarFront Observatories,will give presentation about the observatories and operations.

Meeting Location

First Evangelical Lutheran Church

803 Third Avenue

Longmont, CO 80501

Map

Presentation

“Is our Solar System Unique? A Holistic View of Exoplanet Demographics” by Dr. BJ Fulton

Summary

NASA’s Kepler and K2 missions discovered thousands of planets by watching for tiny dips in starlight when planets crossed in front of their stars. These discoveries let us study how planet sizes are distributed across the galaxy. Using precise measurements of the host stars we found a surprising gap between planets about 1.5 and 2 times the size of Earth. This “radius gap” suggests that small, close-in planets are rocky worlds with thin envelopes of gas that determine their overall size. Dr. Fulton will discuss what this means for how planetary systems form, and share related work on the abundance of giant planets orbiting far from their stars and the colder, darker regions of extrasolar systems. Combining results from Kepler and long-term, ground-based radial-velocity surveys gives us the most complete picture yet of planetary systems across a huge range of sizes and distances — and helps us ask whether our own solar system is typical or atypical in our galaxy.

Bio

Dr. Fulton is currently a research scientist at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI). He obtained M.S. and PhD degrees in astronomy from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a B.S. in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Fulton specializes in building the software that enables the detection and characterization of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun (exoplanets) using Doppler spectroscopy. He is currently working remotely and lives in Estes Park, CO with his wife Amanda, their Dachshund, and two cats. Besides discovering alien worlds, Dr. Fulton enjoys digital photography and racing his Porsche at autocross and track events.

Title:

Amateur Observations of Jupiter’s Clouds, Hazes, and Composition

Summary:

Jupiter displays multiple colorful cloud types, with regional variations that change over time. For more than a century amateurs have observed and tracked these features, first visually, and now with sophisticated color cameras. These observations have provided the basis for understanding the circulation and wind patterns of the atmosphere, along with periodic regional and global upheavals. Amateurs now peer into the near-infrared (NIR), including the 889 nm methane band, and near ultraviolet (NUV) revealing details of upper-level hazes. Use of other methane filters can probe different cloud levels below the hazes. My recent work has added another twist: the ability to detect not just cloud height, but ammonia concentration. The question arises: How can amateurs contribute objective measurements of Jupiter’s clouds and their changes? By applying calibration to existing and new filter bands that are readily available from optical companies, amateurs can make quantitative measures of color, cloud height, and ammonia distribution. This talk provides background on Jupiter’s cloud layers, then describes these low-cost, accessible observing techniques, some of the results they’ve generated, and how they relate to and support professional planetary research.

Bio

Steven Hill is an amateur astronomer living in Denver where he enjoys the 300 sunny days and clear nights per year we get here in Colorado. Light pollution in the city of Denver led him to focus on bright objects like the planets. He recently retired from his day job at NOAA working on space weather observations. Steve has a Ph.D. in astrophysics, which helps him in all his space-related pursuits. With this background he likes to push the boundaries of what can be accomplished with his backyard telescope equipment. These factors all came together, leading him to investigate ammonia on Jupiter.

Location

The meeting will be at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 803 Third Avenue, Longmont, CO 80501.