Weekly Colloquium at the SETI Institute
-
Sign up for our mailing list to receive regular updates.
-
Attend a colloquium! They are FREE, open to the public and held from noon to 1pm Wednesday, plus select evenings at 7pm. Time and date posted on the schedule below.
- Lectures available on SETI Institute's
channel - Download Poster
for February 2012
Past Climate Change from the Tropics to the Poles: New Information from Corals and Sediment Cores
Much of what we know about the precise nature of "natural climate variability" comes from the study of geological and cryospheric archives of past climate. Cores from large coral colonies reveal sub-monthly changes in ocean conditions extending back several centuries while sediment cores from Antarctic waters tell us about past rapid changes in the Antarctic ice sheet. I'll provide an update on what is new in the world of past climate analysis and its relevance to the global warming debate.
Mysteries of the oscillations of gas accreting onto black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs
Dr. Wagoner will survey the QPOs (quasi-periodic oscillations) seen in the luminosity fluctuation power spectra of compact objects accreting from a binary companion star. There is little understanding of the different frequency relationships in these systems. Dr. Wagoner will focus on the theory and observations of black holes, and compare the predictions of their spin via diskoseismolgy with those from two other methods.
Planetesimal Migration in the Early Days or Taking the Solar System by Störmer
Much of our understanding of the dynamical evolution of the Solar System stems from long-term computational simulations of planet and planetesimal evolution. Though these simulations routinely model orbital evolution over millions, even billions, of years, planetesimal evolution is driven primarily by the comparatively brief periods when they have close encounters with planets.
Dr. Grazier will describe a multistep scheme that achieves the theoretical lower bounds for the propagation of error over long simulations intervals and integrates close encounters very accurately. We then present a summary of our investigation into three different early Solar System scenarios: whether Jupiter protected Earth from asteroids in the early Solar System, the icy nature of Ceres, and the interrelation between Centaur Asteroids and the Kuiper Scattered Disk.
The Trillion Dollar Space Enterprise --> Or How The Lynx Suborbital Vehicle Will Change The World
How To Build A Time Machine
Time travel makes great science fiction, but can it really be done? Travel into the future is already a reality, but visiting the past is a much tougher proposition, and may require fantastic resources such as a wormhole in space. Nevertheless, if going back in time is allowed, even in principle, then what about all those paradoxes that make time travel stories so intriguing?
Paul Davies is a physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, where is Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is the author of many books, including "How to Build a Time Machine" and, most recently, "The Eerie Silence: are we alone in the universe?"
A Post-Equinox View of Saturn's Rings
Saturn’s Equinox 2009: Oblique lighting exposed vertical structure and embedded objects. The rings were the
coldest ever. Dr. Esposito will show how images inspired new occultation and spectral analysis that show abundant structure in the perturbed regions.
The rings are more variable and complex than we had expected prior to this seasonal viewing geometry.
A New Feed for the Allen Telescope Array and the Science That it Will Enable
The current feeds of the antennas in the Allen Telescope Array are somewhat unusual and provide wide bandwidth and good sensitivity. We have recently developed an upgrade to the feed which has even more bandwidth and, equally important, substantially better sensitivity. The new sensitivity is about as good as can be achieved. We describe the steps to the upgrade and then lay out new science that is enabled by it, including SETI and the structure of both the nearby and distant universe.
Smart Coatings on Spacecraft Surfaces - New Tools for the Spacecraft Designer's Tool Belt
As we enter the era of manned space flight and habitation beyond low Earth orbit, much longer duration human occupation and much less frequent resupply will be the norm, stretching the capacities and capabilities of life support systems. The myriad internal surfaces aboard ISS and the various crew compartments on drawing boards today are viewed as a liability due to contamination and fouling. Yet, if such surfaces operate synergistically with life support systems, these same surfaces become an asset with practically no increased load weight penalty. Virtually all of these surfaces are coated. Bio-based, non-toxic additives to such coatings, many of which are already being marketed for 1XG applications, will create the functionalized surfaces needed.
Characterization of dark materials on Iapetus, Phoebe and Hyperion
Advances in Fast Burning Fuels and High Performance Hybrid Rocket Propulsion
The Search for New Particles at the CERN Large Hadron Collider
How evolution shapes virus diversity: lessons learned from mosquitoes and shrews
Companions to solar-type stars: analysis of a wide variety of planets, brown dwarfs and small stars
Contact with ET using math? Not so fast.
It is often said that mathematics is a universal language that we could use to make contact with another intelligence. But is that really the case? Or is this just a disguised version of anthropocentrism?
Dr Keith Devlin has written 31 mathematics books and over 80 published research articles. He is the recipient of the Pythagoras Prize, the Peano Prize, the Carl Sagan Award, and the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award. In 2003, he was recognized by the California State Assembly for his "innovative work and longtime service in the field of mathematics and its relation to logic and linguistics." He is "the Math Guy" on National Public Radio (For more information see http://profkeithdevlin.com).
The Climates of the Planet Mars
Lectures Topics
- Analysis of Data (7)
- Astrobiology (31)
- Earth Sciences (11)
- Human Spaceflight (16)
- Mars (29)
- Observational Astronomy (30)
- Outer Planets (16)
- Primitive Bodies (11)
- REU Program (2)
- SETI (22)
- The Moon (5)
- Theoretical Astronomy (16)
- Uncategorized (5)
