Monthly Archives: February 2025

Event

IAA Lecture Weds 5th March 2025 – Larmor Theatre, QUB. Dr Abbie Donaldson

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“Insights offered by comet nuclei and the upcoming Comet Interceptor mission”

Synopsis:

The formation and migration history of the Solar System is encoded in remnant planetary disc material, known to us as the diverse populations of minor planets. Of these, comets are some of the most pristine and provide us with regular opportunities to study their properties up close as they approach the Sun on eccentric orbits.

    Comets are most well known for their spectacular displays of activity in which the central, solid nucleus becomes shrouded by a coma of dust and gas. However, during periods of inactivity we can directly probe the surface properties of their nuclei.

   In this talk, I will describe the insights offered by observations of short-period comet nuclei, including how we use rotational lightcurves to extract information about their physical and surface properties, and what these tell us about their evolutionary path through the Solar System.

    I will also outline the upcoming Comet Interceptor mission, a fast-class collaboration between ESA and JAXA with significant contributions from UK scientists. Expected to launch in 2029, the mission aims to perform the first ever flyby of a comet making its first approach to the inner Solar System, providing us with an up-close look at some of the least thermally processed material in the Solar System.

BIO:

Dr Abbie Donaldson is a research associate at the University of Edinburgh working with Professor Colin Snodgrass as Science Support Officer for Comet Interceptor. She completed her PhD in 2024, during which she studied Jupiter-family comets using ground-based observing facilities. 

Event
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IAA Lecture Tues18th February 2025 – Larmor Theatre, QUB – Note – Tuesday!

Prof Monica Grady – “Rocks from Space”

Note, admission is Free, but as this is a Northern Ireland Science Festival event, tickets are required…..

https://nisciencefestival.com/events/rocks-from-space

Traditionally, astronomers study stars and planets by telescope. But we can also learn about them by using a microscope – through studying meteorites. From meteorites, we can learn about the processes and materials that shaped the Solar System and our planet. Tiny grains within meteorites have come from other stars, giving information about the stellar neighbourhood in which the Sun was born.

Meteorites are fragments of ancient material, natural objects that survive their fall to Earth from space. Some are metallic, but most are made of stone. They are the oldest objects that we have for study. Almost all meteorites are fragments from asteroids, and were formed at the birth of the Solar System, approximately 4570 million years ago. They show a compositional variation that spans a whole range of planetary materials, from completely unmelted and unfractionated stony chondrites to highly fractionated and differentiated iron meteorites. Meteorites, and components within them, carry records of all stages of Solar System history. There are also meteorites from the Moon and from Mars that give us insights to how these bodies have formed and evolved.

In her lecture, Monica will describe how the microscope is another tool that can be employed to trace stellar and planetary processes.

Monica Grady is Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences in the School of Physical Sciences at the Open University in Milton Keynes. She obtained a degree in Chemistry and Geology from the University of Durham in 1979, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1983. Her thesis concerned the carbon chemistry of meteorites, and she has continued this study throughout her subsequent career. Professor Grady has led major research programmes in the study of the origin and evolution of the Solar System through analysis of meteorites, the Moon, Mars, asteroids and comets. Her particular research interests are in carbon and nitrogen chemistry with additional expertise in the mineralogy of meteorites, especially of primitive meteorites and meteorites from Mars. Her work builds a bridge between the non-biological chemistry of the Galaxy and the origin of life on Earth. It also provides a framework within which the potential for life beyond Earth can be considered.

A full biography can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Grady