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January Astronomy Meeting
January 24, 2019 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
The Outer Solar System + Are we alone?….the search for alien life..
Happy New orbit around our host star!
Our first meeting of 2019.
Free for members. Non-members can attend once for free and are then encouraged to join.
Two great presentations lined up for you.
Short Presentation : ‘Are we alone?’
by Club member Art Charbonneau
Main presentation
‘Exploration of the Outer Solar System: Our Window to Planet Formation’
by DAO Planetary Scientist Wes Fraser.
Abstract :
The outer Solar System beyond Neptune has long been elusive, and only accessible through the world’s largest telescopes. Despite this limitation, observations of Kuiper Belt objects, and even further distant bodies have provided our best window into the earliest stages of planet formation and the compositional building blocks that went into everything from Kuiper Belt objects, dwarf planets like Pluto, and the gas giants themselves. Excitingly, the New Horizons spacecraft has just flown past the small object 2014 MU69, providing us our first in-situ observations of a primordial icy Kuiper Belt object. Though only a few images have trickled in, the results have been astounding, revealing details of the planetesimal growth process that will fundamentally change the picture of how these small bodies grew.
In this presentation I will provide the modern view of the outer Solar System, and the objects found there. This presentation will involve reference to running telescope programs like my Colours of the Outer Solar System Origins Survey, and the exciting results from New Horizons. I will provide the current best picture of the life of an icy body, and what exactly these objects are made from. I will present how we think the outer Solar System’s denizens grew from dust and gas, evolved to their current shapes, and then were violently pushed to where we see them today.
Bio:
Wes Fraser is a planetary scientist and astronomer with interest in planet formation, and the compositions of icy bodies in the outer Solar System. An experienced observer, Wes has been gathering telescopic observations of Kuiper Belt Objects and comets through his PhD which he was awarded in 2008, to the current day where he is the Principal Investigator for various telescope projects aimed at studying the Kuiper Belt. Having recently moved on from a lectureship at Queen’s University, Belfast, Dr. Fraser has moved back to Victoria, BC where he continues to work with astronomers at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, and colleagues at Caltech. Wes is participating in the preparations for the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, and actively hunting for the elusive Planet 9.