Saturn’s Rings and Icy moons from Cassini
Physics Colloquium
3:30 pm
Jorgensen Hall Room: 136
PRESENTED BY Philip Nicholson, Cornell University
Refreshments will be served in the JH 1st Floor Vending Area at 3:30
Bio: Professor Nicholson has been on the faculty of the Department of As-tronomy at Cornell University since 1982. An Australian by birth, he com-pleted a Ph.D. in Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technolo-gy in 1978 as a Fulbright Scholar. Before moving to Cornell, he held post-doctoral positions at Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. His research centers on two main areas: the orbital dynamics of planetary ring systems and natural satel-lites, and infrared observational studies of planets, their satellites and rings. His work has included studies of the ring systems of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune via Voyager observations and ground-based stellar occulta-tions; Earth-based observations with the 5-meter Hale telescope at Palo-mar of the small moons of Jupiter and Saturn discovered by the Voyager spacecraft; dynamical investigations of the planetary system around the pulsar PSR 1257 + 12, and of the rotational evolution of natural satellites. In 1997, he was a co-discoverer of the first irregular moons of Uranus, Cal-iban and Sycorax.
Prof. Nicholson is a member of the Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer science team on the NASA/ESA Cassini mission to Saturn, and was the leader of a team of Cornell and Caltech astronomers studying the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter in July 1994 using the Hale tele-scope.
Refreshments will be served in the JH 1st Floor Vending Area at 3:30
Bio: Professor Nicholson has been on the faculty of the Department of As-tronomy at Cornell University since 1982. An Australian by birth, he com-pleted a Ph.D. in Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technolo-gy in 1978 as a Fulbright Scholar. Before moving to Cornell, he held post-doctoral positions at Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. His research centers on two main areas: the orbital dynamics of planetary ring systems and natural satel-lites, and infrared observational studies of planets, their satellites and rings. His work has included studies of the ring systems of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune via Voyager observations and ground-based stellar occulta-tions; Earth-based observations with the 5-meter Hale telescope at Palo-mar of the small moons of Jupiter and Saturn discovered by the Voyager spacecraft; dynamical investigations of the planetary system around the pulsar PSR 1257 + 12, and of the rotational evolution of natural satellites. In 1997, he was a co-discoverer of the first irregular moons of Uranus, Cal-iban and Sycorax.
Prof. Nicholson is a member of the Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer science team on the NASA/ESA Cassini mission to Saturn, and was the leader of a team of Cornell and Caltech astronomers studying the impact of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter in July 1994 using the Hale tele-scope.