Jump to content

Ucla Fresh Fall Lecture October


Recommended Posts

Sep 2017 News from the UCLA Meteorite Gallery

One of a series of monthly letters sent to visitors to the UCLA Meteorite Gallery and to others who requested to be on the mailing list.

The Meteorite Gallery (Geology room 3697) is open with a docent present every Sunday from 1 until 4 with the exception of the last two Sundays in the calendar year. And it is open every work day from 9 until 4 but without a docent.  It is not open Saturdays.

We remind you that our website address is:http://www.meteorites.ucla.edu/. There you can find a map of our corner of the UCLA campus and instructions for parking in structure 2.

At 2:30 on Sunday September 17 the speaker at our Gallery Event is Professor David Jewitt. His topic is "From the Edge of the Solar System". Dave Jewitt is well known for his discovery of the Kuiper-Belt objects. He has been awarded the prestigious Kavli and Shaw Prizes and numerous other awards. For more information visit:http://www2.ess.ucla.edu/~jewitt/David_Jewitt.html.

 

Summary:  We have discovered that a new comet, C/2017 K2, is active at record distance from the Sun. The comet was discovered at 16 AU, beyond the orbit of Saturn, and was later found on images when it was at 24 AU. It appears to be making its debut in the planetary region, following 4.5 billion years in the frigid Oort cloud. He will discuss the new object and describe what we know about the outer realms of the solar system.

The lecture is in Geology 3656, just 40 yards west of the UCLA Meteorite Gallery.

 

Our next Gallery Lecture will occur on Sunday October 22. The speaker is Mark Fries, a scientist at the NASA Johnson Spacecraft Center in Houston. The title of his talk is: "How to find meteorites with weather-radar observations of fireballs: Opportunities for "citizen science" in the US and worldwide".  The US maintains a nationwide network of Doppler weather radars, and it is possible to find meteorite falls using their freely-available radar imagery. This talk will describe what a meteorite fall is, how frequently they occur (Spoiler: About once per year in the US!), and instructions so that anyone with internet access can find them.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...