“Exploring our Solar System: Past, Present, and Future”
Synopsis:
Our Solar System is a rich and dynamical playground of rocky planets, gas and ice giants, and lots of chaotic and interesting smaller asteroids. Within the various small body populations in our Solar System, there lies is a treasure trove of information that can tell us about where we came from and how we came to exist.
In this talk I want to give a guided history tour of how we think we know how a Solar System is created, from the earliest dusty disk around the Sun, to planet formation, to what is currently out there now. I’ll then talk a bit about my own research into how we get this understanding from both ground and space-based telescopes, as well as creating models of Solar System bodies.
Finally, I’ll give everyone a sneak peek into the next revolutionary telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, that is going to revolutionise our understanding of the Solar System.
Bio; I am a current 3rd (and final) year PhD student at Queen’s University Belfast, where I work with Dr Meg Schwamb on understanding the small Solar System bodies through both observational studies with ground-based telescopes, and by creating models and simulations to compare.
I completed my undergraduate master’s study at Queen’s University Belfast in 2022 in ground-based observations of comets and their brightening as they move nearer to the Sun.