SETI Institute Colloquium Series

The Hunt for Hidden Dimensions

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:40:51 GMT

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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Roundup at the Kepler Corral: the Race to Detect the First Earth-sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Sunlike Star

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:10:00 GMT

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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Laboratory Studies of Water Ice Cloud formation under Martian Conditions

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:06:00 GMT

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.

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Mission to a Potentially Threatening Asteroid

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:04:00 GMT

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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The Weather on Mars by David Hinson

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:35:00 GMT

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Some Thoughts from an Anthropologist on Culture, Interstellar Communication, and the Construction of Interstellar Messages by John Traphagan

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:34:00 GMT

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How Spaceflight Was Born by Eugene Lally

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 18:33:00 GMT

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Science in my life, and the unpredictability of discovery by Charles Townes

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:59:00 GMT

SETI Institute Colloquium Series

The Hunt for Hidden Dimensions

Roundup at the Kepler Corral: the Race to Detect the First Earth-sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of a Sunlike Star

Laboratory Studies of Water Ice Cloud formation under Martian Conditions

Mission to a Potentially Threatening Asteroid

The Weather on Mars by David Hinson

Some Thoughts from an Anthropologist on Culture, Interstellar Communication, and the Construction of Interstellar Messages by John Traphagan

How Spaceflight Was Born by Eugene Lally

Science in my life, and the unpredictability of discovery by Charles Townes

Exploring the Extreme Universe with GLAST by Professor Lynn Cominsky, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sonoma State University

The Advanced Studies Laboratory - A unique linkage between UCSC and NASA Ames by Rosalind Grymes

Creation and Destruction of Continental Crust at Subduction Zones by Eli Silver

People and Automation: Implications for Long Duration Lunar and Planetary Exploration by Jessica Marquez

An Electromagnetic Sounder to Detect Subsurface Liquid Water on Mars: Field Test Results by Greg Delory

Toxicological effects of moon dust - how humans will react in the lunar environment by Jon Rask and Erin Tranfield

Exploratory data analysis of planetary hyperspectral datasets - use of statistics to enhance mission science return by Mario Parente

Liverpool Telescope: Development and science results from a fully autonomous common-user telescope by Robert Smith

The Statistical Drake Equation by Claudio Maccone

SETI Institute - History, the Institute Today, and Plans for the Future by Tom Pierson

Hepatitis B Virus. Discovery, the Present, and the Future. by Baruch Blumberg

HiRISE views of Martian Strata and Slope Streaks by Ross Beyer

Anomaly Detection in Data Streams and its Implications for Radio Astronomy and SETI by Ashok Srivastava

Geodynamics of Icy Satellites by Francis Nimmo

The Allen Telescope Array: A Wide-angle, Panchromatic Radio Camera for SETI and Radio Astronomy by Jill Tarter

Quantum Astronomy: Extending the Weirdness of Modern Physics to Cosmic Scales by Laurance Doyle

On the extraction of all information embedded in radio siganls: Implications for SETI by Bo Thide

Planetary Habitability of Mars and of Titan: A Tale of Two Worlds by Devon Burr