Astronomy Cafe – Monday December 7th 2020

Transcript video for meeting

SPEAKER: The Age and Parent Body of the Quadrantid meteoroid stream – Dr. Abedin Abedin, a postdoctoral fellow from NRC Herzberg

Abedin Abedin will share his research on meteoroid streams … the swarm of particles left in the wake of comets and near earth asteroids that cause meteor showers. This presentation is just in time to kindle enthusiasm for the Geminids. This is the strongest meteor shower of the year and will peak on the 13th of December.

Interesting Presentations Recommended by Jim Hesser …

Presentation on the Perseverance Rover

Jim Hesser writes: I highly recommend this recorded talk by Dr. Farah Alibay on NASA’s Perseverance rover (scheduled to land on Mars on 18 Feb. 2021). She is an excellent communicator who enriches the engineering story with many human interest elements. While anyone interested in planetary exploration would likely find it interesting, about fifteen minutes before the end of the recording she’s asked a question about what barriers she faced on her way to a great job at the Jet Propulsion Labooratory. Her answer will encourage and inspire any young person (particularly girls) to persevere in following their dreams.

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zac1lEQ0kP0

Here’s the pre-talk announcement:

“Mars 2020: The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) Ottawa Centre in conjunction with the RASC Montréal Centre is excited to invite you to learn all about the Engineering of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission and the Perseverance Rover during a webinar by Montreal-born Dr. Farah Alibay. Dr. Alibay is a flight system engineer on the team that will “drive” the rover on Mars, having prior experience with 2 other Mars missions at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Dr. Alibay possesses an undergraduate and master’s degree from the University of Cambridge in the U.K., and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, all in Aerospace Engineering. We are pleased to co-host this exciting Zoom Webinar with the RASC Montréal Centre and the RASC NextGen Committee.”

The search for life as we don’t know it … a 30 minute conversation

Earth is the only place in the Universe where we know life definitely exists. But does that mean life, if it exists elsewhere, will always thrive in Earth-like conditions, with our particular set of chemicals, temperatures, and pressures? 

On December 3rd, Heather Graham, a fellow in CIFAR’s  Earth 4D: Subsurface Science & Exploration program and research associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, introduced her unique approach to the search for extraterrestrial life. She starts from the assumption that life in the universe need not have much in common with life on Earth,  and looks for agnostic biosignatures that may help us find life that is different from the life we know on Earth. To watch, go to https://www.cifar.ca/virtual-talks. After registration you can view the conversation with her.

Solar Eclipses: Science and the Spectacle on December 14th