ONLINE – General Meeting – September 2020

TAAA’s next monthly meeting will be held online. We will have a 6:30 P.M. presentation open to the general public. This will be followed at approximately 7:15 P.M. by some activities for TAAA members only. To view the meeting, please visit https://www.facebook.com/TucsonAstronomy

6:30 pm – Main Presentation

Title:  Using Stars to Understand Saturn’s Atmosphere

Speaker:  Zarah Brown is a 4th year graduate student at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. She studies Saturn’s upper atmosphere using Cassini data with her adviser, Tommi Koskinen, and did her undergraduate research on Saturn’s rings. She has degrees in both astrophysics and fine arts and helps run LPL’s annual Art of Planetary Science show.

The upper atmospheres of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus are all hotter than would be expected if they were heated in the same way that Earth’s upper atmosphere is heated—a longstanding unanswered question in planetary science called the “energy crisis.” In the months before the Cassini spacecraft’s final plunge into Saturn, it made a series of observations of Saturn’s upper atmosphere to try and understand the origin of the additional heat. In a technique called stellar occultation, Cassini used the passages behind Saturn’s upper atmosphere of stars in Orion and Canis Major to provide detailed information about the ringed planet’s density and temperature. This unique set of observations has shed light on the outer planet energy crisis and was published in Nature Astronomy this April.

7:15 pm (Approx) – Other Activities

Title:  TBD

Speaker:  none

To be determined