SETI Institute Colloquium Series Lectures Video

JoAnne Hewett, Professor at SLAC, Stanford University

Extra dimensions of space may be present in our universe. Their
discovery would dramatically change our view of the cosmos and would
prompt many questions. How do they hide? What is their shape? How many
are there? How big are they? Do particles and forces feel their
presence? This lecture will explain the concept of dimensions and show
that current theoretical models predict the existence of extra spatial
dimensions which could be in the discovery reach of present and
near-term experiments. The manner by which these additional dimensions
reveal their existence will be described.

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Dr. Jeffrey Van Cleve, Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp

The Kepler Mission http://www.kepler.arc.nasa.gov
is designed to detect transits of Earth-size planets orbiting in the
"habitable zone" (HZ) around main-sequence stars of apparent visual
magnitude 9 through 14, of F through M spectral type, by means of
differential photometry of
~100,000 stars in the constellation Cygnus. Jeff will discuss the box
in
temperature-diameter space ("The Corral") that Kepler was designed to
search, and show the population of extrasolar planets known from
ground-based radial velocity and gravitational lensing observations. He
will present a calculation of the distance between Earth and the
nearest
transiting planet likely to be discovered by Kepler, and compare it to
results of an all-sky planetary transit survey mission similar to TESS
(The TESS PI has commented that "...when starships transporting
colonists first depart the solar system, they may well be headed toward
a TESS-discovered planet as their new home"). He will end with some
speculation on why the end of the nominal Kepler mission coincides with
the end of the Mayan calendar (and possibly the end of the world as we
know it) on Dec. 21, 2012.

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Dr. Laura T. Iraci, NASA Ames Research Center

Water ice clouds are an important part of the
martian hydrological cycle, influencing the water and energy
budgets. Microphysical models can be used to study the
connections between cloud formation and water distribution
throughout the system (for example, as surface frost
layers), but only if the intricacies of cloud formation and
growth are understood and properly parameterized. To that
end, we have performed laboratory studies of water ice
nucleation on a variety of surrogate materials and have
found that initiation of ice is more difficult than often
presumed. We will report these results, along with
preliminary growth rate observations.

David Morrison, NASA Ames Research Center

Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are interesting to both planetary scientists and
those who are concerned about protecting against their impacts. The first
step, now well underway, is to find them (with the Spacegaurd Survey). Next
we need to characterize NEAs using small spacecraft missions. We are
especially interested in the sub-km NEAs, since they are the most likely to
hit the Earth and also the most accessible targets for human flights beyond
the Moon. This talk focuses on a low-cost rendezvous mission to NEA Apophis,
with the goal of characterizing both the asteroid and its orbit.

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