tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8404561557194113782024-03-18T03:03:53.535+00:00Planetary WanderingsExploring the worlds of our Solar System - Leigh Fletcher.
Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.comBlogger206125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-31271961599573262152022-11-12T16:12:00.005+00:002022-11-12T16:12:58.846+00:00Times are a’ changing…<p>With the chaos of social media (mainly Twitter) at the end of 2022, I started to experiment with Substack as a forum for posting news and blog posts. I’m not too sure yet, but this blog may be discontinued and relocated.</p><p>So if it looks like I’ve vanished from cyberspace, do check out leighfletcher.substack.com </p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-73713309544326308202022-05-25T09:37:00.005+01:002022-05-26T13:24:41.046+01:00Why Uranus? <p>Over the past few weeks I've answered several media enquiries about the future of Ice Giant exploration - here was one exchange by email with Metro News.</p><p><i>Q: Why is Uranus called one of the most intriguing bodies in the solar system?</i></p><p>Uranus is known as an Ice Giant, sitting in between its larger Gas Giant cousins (Jupiter and Saturn), and the smaller terrestrial worlds. When we look out at the ever-growing collection of extrasolar planets (worlds beyond our Solar System), we find that planets of similar sizes to Uranus and Neptune are commonplace. We might therefore have two great examples of the most common outcome of the planetary formation process, right here in our Solar System, and yet their composition, their nature, and their origins remain a mystery.</p><p>Uranus is also a world of extremes – tipped onto its side by a catastrophic collision in the distant past, the planet’s atmosphere, magnetosphere, satellites and rings experience the strangest seasons of anywhere in our Solar System. And because we’ve only had a robotic spacecraft visit Uranus once, there are places on those icy moons that no eyes have ever seen – who knows what might be there, waiting for us.</p><div><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><i>Q: Why wasn’t it explored, so far?</i></p><p>The great distance to Uranus presents an enormous challenge for planetary exploration. Although it has been explored by a single flyby (the Voyager 2 mission in 1986), we need to be in orbit to fully explore the planet, its satellites and rings, over long periods of time. Not only does it take a long time (8-13 years) to get there, but we also need enough fuel to slow us down to enter orbit, and then enough to conduct a comprehensive tour of the Ice Giant system. If we use Jupiter gravity assists, slingshotting by Jupiter on the way to Uranus, we can get more mass (spacecraft, fuel, and scientific payload) into the Uranian system, but that opportunity only comes once every 12-13 years, when Jupiter is in the right place. With the recent announcement from the US decadal survey, I hope that international agencies (NASA, ESA, and others) will be ready for the next opportunity in the early 2030s, so there’s no time to lose.</p><p>There’s also the challenge of providing power to a spacecraft at such great distance – the weak sunlight isn’t going to help, so we have to reply on the decay of radioisotope power sources to provide the electrical energy, and those fuel sources need to be robust enough to survive a multi-decade mission.</p><p><i>Q: How a mission to the seventh planet could change the way we see the solar system?</i></p><p>A mission of exploration to Uranus touches on themes of exploration that span not just our system, but planetary systems in general. Namely, we’ll be using Uranus as a window onto the distant past, searching for clues to the puzzle of planetary origins, and how worlds of this size appear to be a common outcome of the planet formation process. Secondly, we’ll be studying a diverse collection of ‘ocean worlds,’ icy moons of Uranus that show signs of ancient geophysical activity and might harbour subsurface oceans. Where there’s water, we might be able to extend the reaches of the ‘habitable zone’ of a planetary system, further out into the frigid realms of the outer solar system than we ever thought possible.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Q: What discoveries do you expect if the mission to Uranus takes place?</i></p><p>The most exciting discoveries will be the ones we haven’t even dreamt of yet. I’m excited to see the interior structure of an Ice Giant, with potentially unimaginable quantities of water in an exotic phase of matter (slushy hot ice) locked away at great depths, and maybe signatures of that ancient cataclysmic impact. I’m looking forward to seeing a probe descending under parachute into the Uranian clouds, sampling the gases and aerosols as it falls. And there are terrains on the northern hemispheres of the moons that no eyes, human or robotic, have ever seen, because they were in total winter darkness when Voyager 2 flew past in 1986 – who knows what we’ll discover there?</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Q: What is needed to place Uranus at the top of the space exploration agenda?</i></p><p>Let’s be clear – it is already top of the scientific agenda, as a result of the prioritisation from the US decadal survey in 2022, as a flagship-class mission that engages the entire community of planetary scientists. Its themes span the realms of heliophysics and astrophysics too, and the idea of an Ice Giant mission has broad support from the international community, most noticeably ESA through it’s Voyage 2050 strategic plan. What’s needed now is funding (i.e., increases in existing budgets), both in the US and across the world, to support this ambitious mission on a time frame that works to meet the next launch opportunities in the early 2030s. That’s the biggest challenge that the Uranus mission now faces.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Q: What to expect in the future regarding Uranus exploration?</i></p><p>The coming years will be a race to move this mission from a concept to reality, funding and building the hardware that will eventually sit atop a rocket faring, waiting to launch to Uranus. It will be a long journey of a decade or more, just to reach the launch pad. Then a launch around 2031, slingshot past Jupiter, to arrive in the mid-2040s. If all goes well, the mission will then orbit Uranus for several years, returning a suite of spectacular discoveries just like the Cassini mission to Saturn and the Juno and Galileo missions to Jupiter. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>Q: What other celestial bodies have to be urgently explored and why?</i></p><p>In planetary science, we learn more by comparison than by single-target missions. Our exploration and understanding of Ice Giants will remain incomplete until both Uranus and Neptune have been comprehensively explored. Neptune is just out of reach in the coming decade, but the next opportunity for a gravity slingshot arrived at the end of the 2030s. A voyage to Neptune, and its incredible moon Triton (a captured dwarf planet from the distant Kuiper Belt), will be an incredible next step beyond the Uranus mission.</p><p> </p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-21143116210311509462022-04-19T21:05:00.000+01:002022-04-19T21:05:06.098+01:00Finally! A Uranus Mission for the Next Decade<p>The US Decadal Survey for Planetary Science dropped today, prioritising Uranus for a flagship mission in the coming decade. I had the opportunity to talk to a number of reporters, some of the frequent questions are included below.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here's the news from the National Academies on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PlanetaryDecadal?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PlanetaryDecadal</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Uranus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Uranus</a>: when I first read that recommendation, I feared I might be dreaming! Elation, relief, gratitude to the team that made this happen, and a little trepidation about the road ahead. <a href="https://t.co/rPVLRedgkL">https://t.co/rPVLRedgkL</a> <a href="https://t.co/Xq3cj6xzvi">pic.twitter.com/Xq3cj6xzvi</a></p>— Leigh Fletcher (@LeighFletcher) <a href="https://twitter.com/LeighFletcher/status/1516435770277515273?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>What does it mean to you to have such a top recommendation for an ice-giant mission? </i></p><p>When I first read that recommendation, I feared I might be dreaming! Elation, relief, pride in the team that made this happen, and a little trepidation about the road ahead. Today we’re one step closer to seeing that ambitious orbital mission to an Ice Giant system that we’ve been working towards for so long.</p><p>I owe my career to the pioneers who pushed for the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and Titan, and there’ll be hundreds of future scientists out there today who’ll now get the same chance, making their own discoveries in the Uranian System. I started thinking about Ice Giant exploration in 2008, ahead of the last decadal survey that ranked Uranus as a third priority after Mars and Europa. We’ve been carrying that torch – through research, white papers, mission proposals, and international meetings – on and off for 15 years (including the 2020 Royal Society meeting in London, just before the pandemic hit). The science case has only improved with time, particularly as Ice-Giant-sized worlds (or just smaller) appear commonplace in the pantheon of exoplanets. This decadal survey prioritisation is a wonderful leap forward for the outer solar system community.</p><p><i>When would you think, realistically, a Uranus mission would launch if NASA takes the decadal's recommendation?</i></p><p>There are many hurdles to come – political, financial, technical – so we’re under no illusion. However, missions to Ice Giants are dramatically improved, in terms of the mass that you can deliver to orbit around the planet, if you can borrow some of Jupiter’s energy for a gravitational slingshot. For that, Jupiter has to be in just the right place, which it will be in the early 2030s – the earliest possible slot is 2031 for a 13-year cruise to Uranus, with flexible launch opportunities for a few years after with longer cruises. That gives us around a decade to go from a paper mission to hardware in a launch faring, so there’s no time to lose.</p><p><i>In your opinion, is Neptune entirely off the table for a mission in the near future, given the decadal's concerns about launch options?</i></p><p>The case for a Neptune mission remains as strong as ever, particularly given the high interest in studying Triton as a captured KBO. Indeed, we’d learn far more about the nature of Ice Giant systems via a true comparative study. But it comes down to opportunities: a Jupiter gravity assist for Neptune is available at the end of the 2020s, a little too close for comfort for developing a flagship orbiter and probe. Whilst other trajectories exist without a Jupiter flyby, they’re not without risk and cost, and the decadal suggests that new studies of technology development for a Neptune mission are needed. The next gravity-assist window for Neptune might be under consideration for the 7th New Frontiers mission sometime in the late-2030s/early-2040s, but it’s hard to predict the state of play that far in advance.</p><p><i>And how might a NASA Uranus mission mesh with European contributions, given that an ESA contribution to an international mission to the ice giants was noted in the recent Voyage 2050 exercise from Europe?</i></p><p>I was heartened to see the Voyage-2050 recommendation of an Ice Giant mission with international partners – the same message was given in 2013 when we proposed Ice Giants as a destination for ESA’s L-class missions, and the ESA Director of Science used Ice Giants as an example of what could be done with an ESA funding uplift back in 2019. The key question now is whether there’s room in national budgets and ESA’s science programme for an ambitious partnership – I hope so, but we’ll have to wait and see! After all, the Cassini-Huygens partnership, with its clean separation of tasks and responsibilities, was cited as “a superb example of international cooperation” in this survey.</p>
Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-89198861179295608072021-06-10T12:17:00.001+01:002021-06-10T12:17:29.538+01:00Partial Solar Eclipse in 2021<p>Obviously by totality I mean "maximum eclipse of about 23% from Leicester", but I was quite excited to capture this image, in any case!</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Gotcha! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SolarEclipse?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SolarEclipse</a> captured through the clouds from <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Leicester?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Leicester</a>, a few minutes after totality. <a href="https://t.co/WsiW8uslE5">pic.twitter.com/WsiW8uslE5</a></p>— Leigh Fletcher (@LeighFletcher) <a href="https://twitter.com/LeighFletcher/status/1402934678714208256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2021</a></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>And here are some helpful tools for eclipse safety, and identifying the time and date of the next one:</p><p> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Partial <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SolarEclipse?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SolarEclipse</a> happening tomorrow morning, and visible from here in the UK (23% coverage from Leicester) - with lots of precautions, of course, see safety tips here: <a href="https://t.co/69cJz0NBt9">https://t.co/69cJz0NBt9</a><br /><br />View for your city here:<a href="https://t.co/qrTZqOzQSr">https://t.co/qrTZqOzQSr</a> <a href="https://t.co/ZAUu7P9y2D">pic.twitter.com/ZAUu7P9y2D</a></p>— Leigh Fletcher (@LeighFletcher) <a href="https://twitter.com/LeighFletcher/status/1402613767305940992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>
Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-64560117844183074092021-05-10T15:22:00.009+01:002021-05-18T10:38:54.246+01:00Primary School Resources for Space<p>I've been asked a few times about space resources available online for primary education, so I'm going to try to collate a list here - this is non-exhaustive, so please feel free to offer suggestions!</p><p>The European Space Agency have a range of activities for different key stages:</p><p><a href="https://www.stem.org.uk/esero/resources">https://www.stem.org.uk/esero/resources</a></p><p><a href="https://discoverydiaries.org/resources/">https://discoverydiaries.org/resources/</a></p><p>Some of my colleagues also helped to provide videos for the STEMLearning Youtube channel, in case that provides ideas:</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/STEMLearning">https://www.youtube.com/c/STEMLearning</a></p><p>There’s a competition on right now to design artwork for the side of the rocket launching JUICE, a Jupiter mission I’ve been working on for the past decade:</p><p><a href="https://www.esa.int/kids/en/learn/Our_Universe/JUICE/Juice_Up_Your_Rocket!_art_competition">https://www.esa.int/kids/en/learn/Our_Universe/JUICE/Juice_Up_Your_Rocket!_art_competition</a></p><p>Some ideas for Space Resources for KS2:</p><p><a href="https://www.ogdentrust.com/about-us/news/bringing-deep-space-to-the-primary-classroom">https://www.ogdentrust.com/about-us/news/bringing-deep-space-to-the-primary-classroom</a></p><p><a href="https://www.greatscienceshare.org/weekly-themes-2021-week-2">https://www.greatscienceshare.org/weekly-themes-2021-week-2</a></p><p>Destination Space, funded by UKSA:</p><p><a href="http://www.destinationspace.uk/">http://www.destinationspace.uk/</a></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-74554904790434192442021-03-07T21:32:00.011+00:002021-11-01T20:52:46.885+00:00Lockdown on the Bryson Line<p></p><p><b>Week 1 of 2021 - Introduction</b></p><p>Locked down again and going mad. I'm not particularly good at sticking to an exercise routine - seem to get bored too easily with running (after a couch-to-5km) and cycling (which I tend to do with the kids). But I do enjoy walking, whatever the weather, headphones in and listening to an audiobook or podcast. Anyone that lives near me will probably spot me doing laps of the village every few days - we have an old railway line near our home that's a good straight line for several kilometres, some good cross-field footpaths with views towards Leicester city centre, and a nearby hill looking down into a quarry. But with the lockdowns and homeworking of 2020, I've done these loops around the villages many times.... so I wondered about a change and a new challenge. Not that there's anything I can do right now, in the middle of #Lockdown3.</p><p>One of the amazing audiobooks I listened to in 2020 was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Little_Dribbling">Bill Bryson's Road to Little Dribbling</a>, which saw him taking the route from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, a straight-line route that spans England and Scotland (the longest straight line one can travel in the UK without crossing any part of the sea, which he calls the Bryson Line). If you draw a straight line between the two (916 km), it passes within 2.8 km of the very centre of England. </p><p>That's right here in Leicestershire, at Lindley Hall Farm, 1.5 km east of Fenny Drayton and 5 km north of Nuneaton. The farm is part of the former RAF Lindley (1943-46) airfield, named after the farm which itself was named after the former Lindley Hall. According to Wikipedia, a plaque denoting this point, and disputing England's "traditional" centre as being Meriden in the West Midlands, was erected by <a href="https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2014/08/where-is-the-centre-of-great-britain-2/">Ordnance Survey</a> on 14 June 2013. This also right next to MIRA, the Motor Industry Research Association, an automotive engineering and development consultancy company that uses the old airfield.</p><p>It's also only 7.3 km from where I grew up, in Hinckley in Leicestershire. </p><p>So that feels like a meaningful-enough starting point for this fairly pointless blog post. Armed with Strava recording my movements, Google Maps as a guide to the Bryson Line from Lindley Hall Farm, and Wikipedia for place names, I wondered how far I would get without actually leaving Leicestershire.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Week 2</b><b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>12.69 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(12.69</b><b> km so far)</b></p><p>Embarking on the Bryson Line from the dead centre of England. Past Sibson, ending up in a field between Sheepy Magna and Wellsborough at 52.62015, -1.49456. I'm in the civil parish of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheepy">Sheepy,</a> created in 1935 from the merger of the four civil parishes of Sheepy Magna, Sheepy Parva, Sibson and Upton. Right through the centre of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twycross_Zoo">Twycross</a>, home to the incredible Zoo that I've visited many times with my family, and which has the largest collection of monkeys and apes in the Western World. Still in Leicestershire for now. I end up outside a place called the Upper Rectory Farm Cottages in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appleby_Magna">Appleby Magna</a>, which (according to Wikipedia) lies on the edge of the ancient boundary between the kingdom of Mercia and the Danelaw.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_eqAnN57zazlocNWLpC5-RemhJI356OtfDPGrCWRkWTaTkO68ZS9aic5-4vnLgCUiFbPRBv5FGnMLO8dErrwGHtHSNwsshrHdAqrh18moH955KUN4pkPsa8pX9MCfT_eu7Nz5rxFOdo1/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="1506" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_eqAnN57zazlocNWLpC5-RemhJI356OtfDPGrCWRkWTaTkO68ZS9aic5-4vnLgCUiFbPRBv5FGnMLO8dErrwGHtHSNwsshrHdAqrh18moH955KUN4pkPsa8pX9MCfT_eu7Nz5rxFOdo1/" width="303" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><b>Week 3</b><b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>18.9 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span></span>(31.59</b><b> km so far)</b></p><p>Appleby Magna to Shortheath, near to the Forestry Commission's Hicks Lodge (good for cycling) and Conkers, in the middle of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Forest_(England)">National Forest </a>(200 square miles of north Leicestershire, south Derbyshire and southeast Staffordshire planted in an attempt to blend ancient woodlands together into a new forest). Also passed close to Moira Furnace, a nineteenth-century iron-making blast furnace. The Leicestershire county line follows the Hooborough Brook here, so I guess I've officially left Leicestershire and arrived in Derbyshire. Properly passing into Derbyshire now, and heading for the centre of Swadlingcote, still within the National Forest. According to Wikipedia, shallow valleys and ridges, shaped particularly by the mining activity which once dominated the area as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicestershire_and_South_Derbyshire_Coalfield">Leicestershire and South Derbyshire Coalfield</a>, seams from the Upper Carboniferous age.</p><p><b>Week 4</b><b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>28.47 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(60.06</b><b> km so far)</b></p><div>Northwest from Swadlingcote towards Burton-on-Trent, crossing the River Trent and the River Dove near to where the two rivers meet, during a 7.6 km walk in the morning. Finished just past a railway line, then a 7.3-km cycle onwards across Derby Airfield, to the east side of Hilton, through the Hilton Gravel Pits Nature Reserve, to finish in fields near Sutton on the Hill. Over the fields from Sutton on the Hill towards Hollington, now getting to the north of Derby. </div><div><br /></div><div>Continuing through Derbyshire, from Hollington, past Shirley, and on to stop just east of Osmaston. Crossed over a deer park at the east end of Osmaston park (looks like a wedding venue), just before crossing the A52 to Derby. From Osmaston through fields to the east of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashbourne,_Derbyshire">Ashbourne,</a> ending near Offcote Grange holiday cottages. Ashbourne is at the southern end of the Peak District, and sometimes referred to as the gateway to the national park, being close to Dovedale.From Ashbourne to the village of Parwich, now properly into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_District">Peak District National Park</a>, Britain's first national park in 1951. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Peak District it is usually split into the Dark Peak, where most moorland is found and the geology is gritstone, and the White Peak, a limestone area, known for valleys and gorges that cut through the limestone plateau. I'm in the White Peak area, passed about 4km east of the famous Dovedale limestone valley and the stepping stones across the River Dove, easily reached from the National Trust Ilam estate (we've walked there a few times in the past). I have about 65 km to do through the Peak District.</div><p></p><p><b>Week 5</b><b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>23.56 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(83.62</b><b> km so far)</b></p><div>Following the A515 through the southern Peak District, from Parwich to Monyash, about 7km west of Bakewell, home of the famous tarts and on the River Wye. On over the A6, past Taddington in the Peak District, finishing right next to the Taddington Brewery (home of Moravka Lager, a Czech pilsner). On past <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millers_Dale">Millers Dale</a>, a beauty spot and valley over the River Wye, with more stepping stones across. I'm about 6km east of Buxton, right in the heart of the Peak District. Over the Monsal Trail and it's viaducts. The trail is constructed from a section of the former Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midland Junction Railway.</div><p><b>Week 6<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>30.66 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(114.28</b><b> km so far)</b></p><p>Passed about 3 km west of Mam Tor, and ended near a place called Brown Knoll (about 540m up) on the way to Kinder Scout. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mam_Tor">Mam Tor </a>is a 517 m hill near Castleton, on the southern edge of the Dark Peak (sandstones) and overlooks the White Peak (limestones). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Knoll">Brown Knoll </a>is one of the highest hills in the Peak District at 569 m, above the head of the Edale valley. It's now the end of January, and I've made it <b>92.6 km in total, </b>and I'm about 25 km west of Sheffield. From Brown Knoll, just south of Kinder Scout near Edale, north over Torside Reservoir, Yeoman Hay Reservoir, and finishing on the Holmfirth Road, at the very northern edge of the Peak District, the region known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Peak">Dark Peak</a>.</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HkCyAdIFaE1xnbxUFe524zYXC4xJtLM2B_lz8A8NgsuLbIw8hRkX29yQqOnpuYawp60Ip_jF650v_T1dLZyvZcHGUN-ta0wYroqNaexK7nuKGm4TL7_ecvYRdsPq5Fd6wLQHCIx2vi0w/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1296" data-original-width="1470" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HkCyAdIFaE1xnbxUFe524zYXC4xJtLM2B_lz8A8NgsuLbIw8hRkX29yQqOnpuYawp60Ip_jF650v_T1dLZyvZcHGUN-ta0wYroqNaexK7nuKGm4TL7_ecvYRdsPq5Fd6wLQHCIx2vi0w/" width="272" /></a></div><p></p><p><b>Week 7<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>31.36 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(145.64 km so far)</b></p><p>Leaving the Peak District, crossing the M62 between Huddersfield and Rochdale, passing 4 km west of Hebden Bridge and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcastle_Crags">Hardcastle Crags</a> (Pennine valley in West Yorkshire), and finishing on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulsworth_Hill">Boulsworth Hill</a>, a large expanse of moorland, the highest point of the South Pennines of south-eastern Lancashire.</p><p><b>Week 8<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>26.55 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(172.19 km so far)</b></p><p>From Boulsworth Hill, continuing to the west of Skipton, and entering the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_Dales_National_Park">Yorkshire Dales National Park</a>. Finished near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malham_Cove">Malham Cove</a>, a curved limestone formation in North Yorkshire.</p><p><b>Week 9<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>50.71 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(222.9 km so far)</b></p><p>Continuing over the Yorkshire Dales from Malham Moor, through North Yorkshire, past the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribblehead_Viaduct">Ribblehead Viaduct</a>, and finishing near the Great Asby Scar Nature Reserve, a limestone pavement in Cumbria. After Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Lancashire, Cumbria will be the last English county on this trip.</p><p><b>Week 10<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>23.52 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(246.42 km so far)</b></p><p>From Asby we leave the Yorkshire Dales behind, skirting up the western edge of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Pennines">North Pennines</a> AONB (second largest of the 49 AONBs in the UK), crossing the River Eden and finishing near the village of Blencarn, a Cumbria village about 6 km west of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Fell">Cross Fell</a> (highest mountain in the Pennines, 893 m). Now a few km east of Penrith on the eastern edge of the Lake District, but this route never quite takes me into the Lakes. </p><p><b>Week 11<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>27.27 km <span> </span>(273.69 km so far)</b></p><p>Skirting the western edge of the North Pennines AONB, just leaving the area to finish near Talkin Tarn, about 14 km east of Carlisle. Talkin Tarn is a glacial lake and country park near Brampton, Cumbria. Passed through Geltsdale, and its RSPB reserve.</p><p><b>Week 12<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>28.5 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span></span>(302.19 km so far)</b></p><p>After 300 km, I'm finally passing over the England-Scotland border near Kershopefoot, a small hamlet in Cumbria at the western edge of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielder_Forest">Kielder Forest Park</a>, the largest human-made woodland in England. Here the border follows the loops of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liddel_Water">Liddel Water.</a> Liddel Water's source is beneath Peel Fell in Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Borders, and flows into the River Esk at Willow Pool. Finished near the village of Ettleton. Ettleton is a village in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, in the former Roxburghshire. Here at the border, I'm about 30 km east of the Solway Coast AONB, but 87 km west of Berwick-upon-Tweed.</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kKtMGeVJ0kXoouNUqxX3CT5Q9tr8zgfPVM1VcQrB-bZsX5ah4uYjF5z4CUDH_mGHR8Z-hAWmQsl7sYZDv90D4TqiR25uszZ6vMG-JIphCVPR00sPjQPRPlOPl4krfI_FoXt04aGXegWl/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1194" data-original-width="1422" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kKtMGeVJ0kXoouNUqxX3CT5Q9tr8zgfPVM1VcQrB-bZsX5ah4uYjF5z4CUDH_mGHR8Z-hAWmQsl7sYZDv90D4TqiR25uszZ6vMG-JIphCVPR00sPjQPRPlOPl4krfI_FoXt04aGXegWl/" width="286" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Route from the Scottish Borders to Edinburgh.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p></p><p><b>Week 13<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>32.90 km (335.09 km so far)</b></p><p>First week properly in Scotland, walking from Ettleton, via Teviothead on the A7 (Carlisle to Edinburgh), skirting the eastern edge of Craik Forest (a forest near Hawick in the Scottish Borders area), and finishing a kilometre west of Hellmoor Loch. This is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Uplands">Scottish Uplands</a>, southernmost and least populous of mainland Scotland's three major geographic areas (the others being the Central Lowlands and the Highlands).</p><p><b>Week 14<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>22.53 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(357.62 km so far)</b></p><p>Continuing through the Scottish Uplands, across Ettrick Water, Yarrow Water, and finishing very close to the River Tweed in the Cardrona Forest on the A72. The Tweed flows 97 miles through the Scottish Border regions into the North Sea at Berwick.</p><p><b>Week 15<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>27.73 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(385.35 km so far)</b></p><p>Onwards through the Tweed Valley Forest Park, past Portmore Reservoir near Westloch. Leaving the Southern Uplands to enter the Central Lowlands. Through Penicuik (a town in Midlothian on the west bank of the River North Esk) and into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentland_Hills">Pentland Hills</a> Regional Park, to finish near Capelaw Hill. The Pentland Hills run southwest from Edinburgh, so I'm on the outskirts of the Scottish capital now, and apparently there are great views of the city from this hill.</p><p><b>Week 16<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>26.12 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(411.47 km so far)</b></p><p>Departing the Pentland Hills, and descending through the suburbs of Edinburgh, here I hit a problem. The only bit of this route crossing water, hitting the Firth of Forth just west of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramond_Island">Cramond Causeway</a>, and east of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forth_Bridge">Forth Bridge</a>, the 130-year old symbol of Scotland. After a swim, back on land near <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalgety_Bay">Dalgety Bay</a>. Now in Fife, and continuing east of Dumfermline, before finishing on a hill just west of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Beath">Hill of Beath</a>.</p><p><b>Week 17<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>31.3 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> <span> </span><span> </span></span>(442.77 km so far)</b></p><p>Travelling northwards through a country of locks, passing just west of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Leven_(Kinross)">Loch Leven</a> (the largest lowland loch in Scotland) near Kinross. Just over the River Earn, finishing just southwest of Perth on the River Tay, the historic county town of Perthshire. I'll be in the County of Perth for quite some time</p><p><b>Week 18<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>27.17 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(469.94 km so far)</b></p><p>From near to Perth, heading towards the centre of the County of Perth, loosely following the path of the River Tay, and into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_Forest_Park">Tay Forest Park</a>, just to the west of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hermitage,_Dunkeld">Hermitage</a>, Dunkeld, a National Trust of Scotland site. Now properly into the Highlands.</p><p><b>Week 19<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>24.77 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(494.71 km so far)</b></p><p>Continuing through the Highlands and Tay Forest Park, over the Rivers Tay and Tummel (east of Loch Tummel), through Killiecrankie, ending on a hill east of Croftmore. This is just inside of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairngorms_National_Park">Cairngorms National Park</a>, which was already the largest national park in the UK, when in 2010 it was expanded into Perth and Kinross.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZuhG8mscG58fKJUmhRsLSn2XX8os3kgrBd5thv3VRNe4PZvKHIoBecFTLSYZgwz_kqAiM6lKHQwKpgcO1MCMXsSevag3aArfkMLtfVkVhsSZSa9ArVKy-OhJM_ghHSz3qcRlG8WwgtWw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="966" data-original-width="1196" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXZuhG8mscG58fKJUmhRsLSn2XX8os3kgrBd5thv3VRNe4PZvKHIoBecFTLSYZgwz_kqAiM6lKHQwKpgcO1MCMXsSevag3aArfkMLtfVkVhsSZSa9ArVKy-OhJM_ghHSz3qcRlG8WwgtWw/" width="297" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><b>Week 20<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>24.48 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(519.19 km so far)</b></p>Looks like a challenging hike through the Cairngorms National Park, finishing about 20km west of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Macdui">Ben Macdui</a> (1309 m), the second highest mountain in Scotland (and all of the British Isles) after Ben Nevis, and the highest in the Cairngorms. The mountains are in the eastern Highlands, a high plateaux at about 1000–1200 m above sea level, above which domed summits rise to around 1300 m.<br /><br /><div><b>Week 21<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>43.84 km<span> <span> </span></span>(563.03 km so far)</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>From the Cairngorms National Park, finishing in Inverarnie, about 9 km east of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness">Loch Ness</a>. The Loch is approximately 37 km southwest of Inverness, and is the second largest loch in Scotland by area (after Loch Lomond). I'm now basically crossing a a geological fault known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Glen">Great Glen</a> Fault, which bisects the Scottish Highlands into the Grampian Mountains to the southeast and the Northwest Highlands to the northwest.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Week 22<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>30.12 km<span> </span><span> </span>(593.15 km so far)</b></div><p></p><p>Ten kilometres right into the heart of Inverness, where the River Ness meets the Moray Firth. It's the largest city and the cultural capital of the Scottish Highlands. Then getting my feet wet as I cross Beauly Firth just west of Kessock Bridge, and finally Cromarty Firth just to the east of Cromarty Bridge, making landfall at Drummond. I'm now on the final 115 km of my journey through the Highlands to Cape Wrath.</p><p><b>Week 23<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>15.98 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(609.13 km so far)</b></p><p>Embarking on my last few miles now, leaving Drummand and travelling northwest, a few miles west of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyrish_Monument">Fyrish Monument</a> (which represents the Gate of Negapatam, a port in Madras, India, which General Munro took for the British in 1781) and east of Loch Morie. I'm travelling through a region called Easter Ross, a loosely defined area in the east of Ross, Highland, Scotland.</p><p><b>Week 24<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>51.81 km<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(660.94 km so far)</b></p><p>Continuing through the Highlands, and crossing the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_of_Sutherland">Kyle of Sutherland</a> near Altass. This is a big river that that separated Sutherland from Ross-shire, old Scottish counties that eventually became the Highland Region. Passing west of Loch Shin, and then across the Loch to finish at a place called Merkland Lodge (near Loch Merkland, in a very mountainous region with peaks on all sides). <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland">Sutherland</a> is the last historic county I'll be travelling through, a rugged and sparsely populated region.</p><p><b>Week 25<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>49.2 km <span> </span>(710.14 km so far)</b></p><p>The final mark to Cape Wrath, passing through the mountainous regions of Sutherland. Very few people here, just wilderness and mountains. The remote far northwest point of Sutherland, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Wrath">Cape Wrath</a>, is also the most northwesterly point in Scotland. The cape is separated from the rest of the mainland by the Kyle of Durness and consists of 280 square kilometres of moorland wilderness known as the Parph. The name Cape Wrath is derived from Old Norse hvarf ("turning point"), which I suppose is apt for the end of this imaginary journey.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNIa5dlQKCvc2Ce98GqVM8kj2MQDv6Yf9lUC0ikMwArJyGiUp7_rgaZdBz47hxVtfw_Sh5jW0pUuakuysckE8WoYQQyIk_CwysDeDMZgX0_uV7JKKmnXWfQYvnxGdCKY6WjzIlLj6m-we/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1014" data-original-width="1110" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhNIa5dlQKCvc2Ce98GqVM8kj2MQDv6Yf9lUC0ikMwArJyGiUp7_rgaZdBz47hxVtfw_Sh5jW0pUuakuysckE8WoYQQyIk_CwysDeDMZgX0_uV7JKKmnXWfQYvnxGdCKY6WjzIlLj6m-we/" width="263" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>The final leg of the journey, north of Inverness, through Sutherland and on to Cape Wrath.</i></div><br /><br /><p></p><p><b>Finish Line</b></p><p>After more than 700 km on foot, and over a hundred short walks since New Years Day 2021, I've now made it to June 2021. Lots of audiobooks and podcasts have been consumed, the evenings have gone from being dark and cold, to bright and warm. Plus I've learned a little about the north of the UK, with a little appreciation for the distances involved. I've been working from home the entire time, so these near-daily outings have given me some exercise and kept me sane during the strangest of years. </p><p>Now I guess I've reached a turning point, I best head home.</p><p><b><br /></b></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-36687817472106709062021-01-29T09:50:00.002+00:002021-01-29T09:50:34.811+00:00Job Opportunity: Research Associate in Planetary Atmospheric Science<p>School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester</p><p>Full Details: <a href="https://jobs.le.ac.uk/vacancies/2535/research-associate-in-planetary-atmospheric-science.html">https://jobs.le.ac.uk/vacancies/2535/research-associate-in-planetary-atmospheric-science.html</a> </p><p>Salary Grade 7 £34,804 to £40,322 per annum</p><p>Funding is available until 31 March 2022 with a possibility of extension</p><p>Closing date: <b> 28 February 2021</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGz4V8nb4U9yVc0zkCH8mcePbl_UvCzx-qc_xxuvKZv-YBRRehoG9YGUR3CjwtogMlnbOrYAe-96FvXarzwxCk2xKlF1ODPHSgAIKlu7N17uM-KqCGYR4ZhNb7Iajb132F_HEKWL5v_eR/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="1156" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeGz4V8nb4U9yVc0zkCH8mcePbl_UvCzx-qc_xxuvKZv-YBRRehoG9YGUR3CjwtogMlnbOrYAe-96FvXarzwxCk2xKlF1ODPHSgAIKlu7N17uM-KqCGYR4ZhNb7Iajb132F_HEKWL5v_eR/" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p><p><b><i>The School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester invites applications for one or more Research Associates in Planetary Atmospheric Science. </i></b></p><p>The Research Associates will join the atmospheres team led by Dr. Leigh Fletcher, tasked with addressing the scientific aims of a European Research Council (ERC) grant to explore time-variable processes shaping the atmospheres of the giant planets. Successful candidates would have existing skills in planetary spectral data analysis and/or numerical modelling expertise of relevance to giant planet atmospheres. Research Associate positions will initially be for a period of 12 months, with funding available until the end of March 2022 with a potential for this to be extended.</p><p>The “GIANTCLIMES” programme seeks investigates natural cycles of meteorology, circulation, and chemical processes shaping the environments of the four giant planets over long spans of time. Inversions of planetary spectra, from ground- and space-based facilities, will be used to reconstruct these atmospheres in three dimensions to explore their temporal variability and the processes coupling different atmospheric regimes. The successful applicant will be expected to develop and expand on our pipeline for interpreting “Guaranteed-Time” and “Early-Release” giant planet observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. In addition, the applicant will conduct joint analyses of thermal-infrared, near-infrared, and microwave observations of giant planet tropospheres. We are therefore particularly interested in candidates with existing expertise in planetary data analysis, planetary atmospheres, and spectroscopic modelling techniques, but all applicants with a strong background in planetary science are encouraged to apply. </p><p>Applications much be made via the link above. Informal queries are welcome and can be made to Dr Leigh Fletcher on leigh.fletcher@le.ac.uk. </p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-43518190540236132952020-12-18T15:04:00.008+00:002020-12-18T15:04:44.047+00:00Saying Goodbye to the Royal Society<p>Last day of "School", and a bittersweet ending for me - after 8 years, my @royalsociety research fellowship is coming to an end. The URF picked me up at a desperate point in 2012 (I was a new Dad, with no job beyond the end of that year), and I can't overstate my gratitude. </p><p>Some highlights of working with @royalsociety during this time: funding two superb PhD students (@RohiniGiles and @ortk95), summer students, and giving me the flexibility to manage an ERC-funded planetary atmospheres research team at Leicester. </p><p>Running the @IcyGiants discussion meeting in 2020, along with a photo I'll treasure from the Marble Hall. Participating in the #SummerScience exhibition in 2018. 'Meet the press' events at Carlton House. Just sitting in the fellows room with a coffee.</p><p>Judging the 2018 Investment Science Book prize, working with an amazing panel, being invited to the Hay festival, then meeting all the authors on the shortlist. A trip to St. James' Palace with the other URFs and DHFs. </p><p>And being allowed to view the planetary and astronomy treasures (Newton's death mask, books by Galileo, Cassini, Herschel, Huygens...) in their archives, showcasing them to amateur Jupiter observers after a Juno meeting in 2018. </p><p>But of course the biggest thing to be grateful for - giving me the opportunity to move from Oxford to Leicester five years ago. Felt like an enormous decision at the time, but no regrets. So, raising a mulled wine to @royalsociety today, and let's see what 2021 brings. </p><p><br /></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-24312086536921590452020-10-13T11:42:00.005+01:002020-10-13T11:42:49.906+01:00On ESO and TIMMI for Jupiter<p><span style="font-family: Georgia, Cambria, times new roman, Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 19px; letter-spacing: -0.057px;">H/T to Ulli Kaufl for showing this quote from Low&Rieke (1974) on early thermal-IR @ESO_IR2020: "Observing at 10 µm has been likened to observing visually through a telescope lined with luminescent panels and surrounded by flickering light as though the telescope were on fire..." </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Georgia, Cambria, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 1.1875rem; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I also never knew that the TIMMI instrument on </span><a class="entity-mention" href="https://twitter.com/ESO" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #1da1f2; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, Cambria, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 1.1875rem; letter-spacing: -0.003em; opacity: 0.8;">@ESO</a><span style="font-family: Georgia, Cambria, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 1.1875rem; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">'s 3.6-m telescope observed the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet collision with Jupiter at 10 µm back in 1994, sensing ammonia gas and debris lofted into the stratosphere (Credit:ESO)</span></p><div class="content-tweet allow-preview" data-action="click->thread#showTweet" data-controller="thread" data-screenname="LeighFletcher" data-tweet="1315951761790824449" dir="auto" id="tweet_2" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, Cambria, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 1.1875rem; letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;"><span class="entity-image" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkMy8wDXcAAHE47.png" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1da1f2; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.8;" target="_blank"><img alt="Image" class=" b-loaded" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkMy8wDXcAAHE47.png" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid rgb(225, 232, 237); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.8rem; margin: 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 700px;" /></a></span></div><div class="content-tweet allow-preview" data-action="click->thread#showTweet" data-controller="thread" data-screenname="LeighFletcher" data-tweet="1315952591298269185" dir="auto" id="tweet_3" style="background: rgb(245, 248, 250); border-radius: 15px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; font-family: Georgia, Cambria, "times new roman", Times, serif; font-size: 1.1875rem; letter-spacing: -0.003em; line-height: 1.58; margin-bottom: 1.25rem; overflow-wrap: break-word; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s;">...and I didn't know that the successor TIMMI2 was also observing Jupiter in 2000 (left, showing thermal waves later seen by Cassini) and 2004 (right). Seems we have more archival Jupiter thermal-IR data than I realised... (Credit:ESO)<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><a class="entity-url" data-preview="true" href="http://www.ls.eso.org/sci/facilities/lasilla/instruments/timmi/html/telfst_ima.html" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1da1f2; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.8;">ls.eso.org/sci/facilities…</a><span class="row justify-content-center entity-multiple-2" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; justify-content: center !important; margin-left: -15px; margin-right: -15px;"><span class="col-md-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 50%; max-width: 50%; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 365px;"><span class="entity-image" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkMzhE2XkAAS3KV.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1da1f2; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.8;" target="_blank"><img alt="Image" class=" b-loaded" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkMzhE2XkAAS3KV.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid rgb(225, 232, 237); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.8rem; margin: 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 335px;" /></a></span></span><span class="col-md-6" style="box-sizing: border-box; flex: 0 0 50%; max-width: 50%; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; position: relative; width: 365px;"><span class="entity-image" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: block; text-align: center;"><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkMzisRWsAEiYOM.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; color: #0056b3; cursor: pointer; opacity: 0.8;" target="_blank"><img alt="Image" class=" b-loaded" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkMzisRWsAEiYOM.jpg" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid rgb(225, 232, 237); box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 0.8rem; margin: 10px 0px 0px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 235px;" /></a></span></span></span></div>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-28050721310870029992020-09-22T15:09:00.000+01:002020-09-22T15:09:15.981+01:00#PlanetBites: On Ice Giants as Laboratories for Convection<p>This blog post is based on a White Paper and #EPSC2020 presentation by Tristan Guillot, available on <a href="https://vimeo.com/457700332">Vimeo</a>. Uranus and Neptune are key to the understanding of planets with hydrogen atmospheres. These are the last worlds never to have been visited by an orbiter, and are probably the building blocks for formation of giant planets. Their interiors and evolution, and hence their composition, are poorly constrained. They are unique laboratories for understanding heat transfer, compositional variations and temporal variations. These planets are active, with methane clouds, seasonal variations, and activity most probably linked to convective phenomena. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWU2kvLMRcIM4TAuYjXviA8LGeIU6xQtbt8lUt96LcLcmIVWJQnr-le7LVbOWHB6l1y6VTkVRqUFqGbcRXrw5_vygpYPkDzO5V0_NIBqSb8qZSRaQ35YAEjTVxALy_2tqVqinhamRXLD9/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="514" data-original-width="685" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWU2kvLMRcIM4TAuYjXviA8LGeIU6xQtbt8lUt96LcLcmIVWJQnr-le7LVbOWHB6l1y6VTkVRqUFqGbcRXrw5_vygpYPkDzO5V0_NIBqSb8qZSRaQ35YAEjTVxALy_2tqVqinhamRXLD9/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>What have we learned from the other giants, like Juno at Jupiter? Equilibrium cloud structures have methane clouds near the top of the observable atmosphere, where the optical depth is relatively low. This is opposite for the water clouds in Jupiter and Saturn. Juno has shown that the atmosphere is not as simple as we expected. Ammonia is varying in altitude and latitude down to great depths, tens of bars or more. The presence of water storms lofting ice crystals, that dissolve ammonia, and then bring down ammonia and water gas down to great depth. This precipitation forms intense cold downdrafts that can penetrate deep. How deep to they fall with no surface? Hydrogen atmospheres always have heavy condensates, contrary to the earth case. Downdrafts in the Sun are important for the solar convective zone.</p><p>Moist convection can be inhibited by composition. The molecular weight effect inhibits convection locally, and this occurs when water is more abundant than 10x solar, and methane more abundant than 40x solar, so should occur on Saturn and the Ice Giants. Furthermore, we don't know what the temperature profiles look like below the 1-bar level - what sort of adiabats should they follow, and what are the implications for interior modelling?</p><p>We need to evolve from a standard picture of uniform clouds based on equilibrium, to something that is more variable with strong updrafts, precipitation, and downdrafts. We know that clouds are extremely important for understanding hot and warm Jupiters and their compositions, and also important for brown dwarfs. A mission is sorely needed, with an orbiter and a probe.</p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-67601318850806029562020-09-22T12:08:00.001+01:002020-09-22T12:08:24.283+01:00#PlanetBites: On ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer<p>At #EPSC2020, Olivier Witasse described the <a href="https://vimeo.com/457689746">JUICE mission to Jupiter</a>, a European mission to explore the emergence of habitable worlds around gas giants. The mission will explore the icy moons Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, particularly their internal oceans, as well as the Jupiter system globally (the atmosphere, interior, and magnetosphere). The aurora of Jupiter show the invisible link between the planet and its wider system, the moons and rings. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3nhrUYn7M7iySCzr0osOoCNELvB9IB52-vNLHqAEr0A_4QjSKodiUsr96-JtwXINkmGIotZTvWG9RRXN6YW9YUM2WT3sFfr3ZzaTm-7dKsX5YVXyo-dzZTXbwQmVPb49UAxNvWYacmlsP/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="604" data-original-width="1090" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3nhrUYn7M7iySCzr0osOoCNELvB9IB52-vNLHqAEr0A_4QjSKodiUsr96-JtwXINkmGIotZTvWG9RRXN6YW9YUM2WT3sFfr3ZzaTm-7dKsX5YVXyo-dzZTXbwQmVPb49UAxNvWYacmlsP/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>Olivier showed schematics of the spacecraft. We have almost 90 m2 of solar panels, with a complex deployment sequence. The optical bench is on the top, with the remote sensing instruments. On the bottom is the 10-m magnetometer boom, with magnetic and plasma sensors. There is a long boom for the radar, and smaller booms for plasma parameters. Two antennas, the high gain antenna and medium-gain antenna will be used for the radio science subsystem, and there are ten instruments in total. </p><p>The video shows movies from Airbus in Germany. All instrument teams are working hard to build, test and deliver the flight models to the industrial contractors - so far two are delivered to Airbus (UVS from San Antonio, and RPWI from Uppsala), with thermal vacuum tests due at ESTEC in January 2021 being the next big milestone. COVID has reduced the margins, with still one month in reserve for a launch in May 2022 from Kourou with Ariane 5. Backup launches in Sep 2022 and Aug 2023 have also been studied.</p><p>JUICE has a complex and interesting mission profile, 7.5 years to Jupiter, arriving in 2029 for a 2.5 year orbital tour around Jupiter, making flybys of the icy moons. In Sep 2032 JUICE will end up in Ganymede orbit, to study the largest satellite of Jupiter down to 500 km above the surface. </p><p>JUICE is a challenging mission - the mission lifetime; the radiation environment requiring shielding; the thermal environment from the hot Venus to cold Jupiter; the power is an issue far from the Sun even with large solar arrays producing 1000 W; and some strong EM requirements, making the design complex.</p><p>Navigation is also challenging with two orbit insertions, and many flybys. We have to address planetary protection, never impacting Europe, plus some power and data rate constraints. Lastly, for a mission lasting 30 years from idea to the end of mission, we need to ensure we have all the knowledge available throughout.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrmE8VDJKakmvi9SDg4qmLAuYcbe8bteUrxSH3uPaf1b7nexHj_lpNtOE-gfAGgK22rWzlofbsvTkZ1EEHErYaje1l3z7f-_kTtsUMTjtEt2HJCNNXzwNW5FcxpFANVcOgdFmejBRLQn9m/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrmE8VDJKakmvi9SDg4qmLAuYcbe8bteUrxSH3uPaf1b7nexHj_lpNtOE-gfAGgK22rWzlofbsvTkZ1EEHErYaje1l3z7f-_kTtsUMTjtEt2HJCNNXzwNW5FcxpFANVcOgdFmejBRLQn9m/" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sci.esa.int/web/juice/-/-6-start-of-assembly-and-integration-for-juice">https://sci.esa.int/web/juice/-/-6-start-of-assembly-and-integration-for-juice</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Olivier shows some images of the spacecraft, with the tanks being inserted at the end of 2019 and the high-gain antenna undergoing tests, showing the size of this enormous spacecraft. The spacecraft is really taking shape now, waiting for the instruments to be integrated. <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-464224147810700572020-09-22T09:31:00.004+01:002020-09-22T09:31:48.816+01:00Pro-Am Support for Juno<p>This workshop, organised by Ricardo Hueso, is a continuation of previous meetings in Nice (2016) and London (2018), making stronger links between the Juno mission and the efforts by the amateur community to produce a near-continuous record of atmospheric activity on Jupiter. EPSC meetings have always had an amateur astronomy contribution, making it unique amongst planetary conferences - it's just a shame we were not able to meet again in person!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w85RA3fi0iu-EBecTexNrBonssndUF1ndeVOTxwKJr7zLBTLPkQRVLdR_HzNOWoBblofsYRT2gxqOxxHEXlUyDtEubBGOYGzwwCpkcxVD6k8Qqy386ZE-nVjeCErG-C9Bkrn0HrraGe_/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="653" data-original-width="1214" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7w85RA3fi0iu-EBecTexNrBonssndUF1ndeVOTxwKJr7zLBTLPkQRVLdR_HzNOWoBblofsYRT2gxqOxxHEXlUyDtEubBGOYGzwwCpkcxVD6k8Qqy386ZE-nVjeCErG-C9Bkrn0HrraGe_/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><h2 style="text-align: left;">Image Processing for Jupiter</h2><p></p><p>Christopher Go started proceedings on how to improve planetary image processing, describing his basic workflow and new techniques in processing. An exciting new development for planetary imaging is the Sony IMX462C back-illuminated CMOS chip, with very high sensitivity in the infrared, allowing them to capture very high-resolution methane band observations compared to the older IMX290M. Chris recommends "taking care of the little things" - seeing is the most important thing, which requires location, location, location. Local conditions can affect this, such as heat sources nearby (the warmth of the cement near his home), so Chris sprays the floor with water a few hours before imaging. He recommends watching the jetstream, using <a href="http://www.stormsurfing.com">www.stormsurfing.com</a> - if you're underneath it, it might not be worth going out imaging. Set up the OTA early and cool it down, using a cooling fan to reduce tube currents (e.g., Chris uses a vacuum cleaner!). The mirror needs to be locked after focussing to prevent focus shifts, never over-tightening the bolts, which would distort the mirror. Collimation needs to be done with a camera on, not with the eyepiece in, as a slight shift can occur. Chris is often asked what settings he uses for his camera, like exposure time and gain. These are immaterial, as he changes them depending on transparency and seeing - he uses the histogram close to 90% with FireCapture gain control. For high-quality captures, he emphasises the need to find the sweetspot of the system, use the fastest frame-rate possible, spend time to focus, don't be gain-shy, and capture a lot of data. For Jupiter, he focusses using Io or Europa. </p><p>Once he has the images, he performs derotation with WinJupos, which allows observers to stack beyond the time limit set by the rotation of the planet. This derotation is so good, Chris even uses it to process Hubble images, even though a typical Hubble image is only 15 minutes long. He uses something called Topaz Labs in Photoshop in methane-band images to pull out the details. Finally, Chris states that "the goal of planetary imaging, is not to acquire beautiful images, but to provide useful data."</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Current Events on Jupiter</h2><p><b>North Temperate Belt: </b>John Rogers picks up the reigns with a review of current phenomena on Jupiter in 2020, and how it fits in with the long-term patterns of Jupiter's climate (cyclic patterns of events, sometimes regularly, sometimes irregularly). The most recent is the NTB south jet outbreaks, which usually occur every five years, but this one has erupted after only four years. One or more brilliant plumes erupts at the latitude of this jet, spreading a disturbance all around the planet. The first plume erupted on August 18th, the brightest feature on the planet in the visible and methane band, showing that it had punched up above the usual cloud deck. It has developed and expanded since, with two further plumes erupting in the weeks that follow at completely different longitudes. Animations over several weeks show the plumes moving eastward, with a wake of dark spots and chaotic regions behind it. One big dark spot - an anticyclonic vortex - appears roughly every five days. On September 1st, a second outbreak appeared, expanding in the same way as the first. On September 8th, a third one appeared. We expect each one to collapse and decay when it catches up with the tail of the previous one, and Shinji Mizumoto at ALPO-Japan has been doing some very careful tracking of this process. Plume 3 already appears to be disappearing, and we expect Plume 2 to disappear in late September, and Plume 1 by mid-October. The turbulent wakes them coalesce into a dark NTB south component, which will then become orange over time. Juno's PJ29 passed just a few days ago, but sadly did not cover the current outbreak.</p><p><b>North Tropical Domain: </b> In the North Tropical Domain we observe NEB expansion events (where the brown belt expands northwards) every 3-5 years. The most recent one was in 2017, and a new event started in April 2020, possibly initiated in February from a bright rift around "White Spot Z" (a large white anticyclone). In the wake of the rifted region, some sections of the NEB were drifting northward. The belt had big dark patches, and some brighter cyclonic areas. By September the belt has expanded all the way around the planet. From here on, we expect a series of barges and Anticyclonic White Ovals (AWOs) all around the expanded northern NEB, but at the moment the NTB south outbreak could be disturbing this process.</p><p><b>Equatorial Zone:</b> This typically-white zone has been vividly coloured over the past couple of years. This event began in 2018, peaked last year, but is still there today. As of this summer, it looks stable and distinct as an ochre belt. Maybe things are being brought up from the deeper atmosphere and "being cooked" by UV light to create the ochre colour. </p><p><b>South Tropical Domain:</b> In the South Tropical Domain, the SEB is the only belt not undergoing any special cycles right now. It is unusually pale in the northern half, but there remains plenty of convective disturbance in the wake of the Great Red Spot, so no evidence of a fade any time soon. Its always possible that a new mid-SEB outbreak can occur at any time. Right now, some little vortices entering Red Spot Hollow are still pulling flakes out of the Red Spot, continuing the activity seen in 2019. It's still happening, and was observed again this month. The GRS has begin shrinking again this year, even though the flaking events haven't been quite so impressive, so will this be a stable decline or will it recover again?</p><p>Finally, the <b>South Temperate Domain,</b> which consists of structured sectors that appear and propagate around the planet on an otherwise blank domain. There's always two or three of these, one at the moment adjacent to Oval BA, and another at the following end of the STB spectre. We are expecting a new structure to arise preceding Oval BA, arising from cyclonic vortices. The appearance of "Clyde's Spot" from the small white spot in STB latitudes might be a precursor of this, and was observed by JunoCam during PJ27. This short-lived plume left a darker spot that has continued to be turbulent, and maybe the dark spot will evolve into a new structured sector.</p><h2 style="text-align: left;">Juno and JunoCam</h2><p>Glenn Orton from JPL joined from California, mentioning that they finally have clear air after the winds have shifted from the Bobcat fire, and the Mount Wilson observatory has been saved. Glenn's role on the Juno mission was to provide ground-based observations to support the mission. These are needed to improve the spatial coverage over the globe where Juno is not observing; to provide context in time to track the evolution of features; to provide spectral coverage in ranges that are not covered by Juno instrumentation, and to provide simultaneous coverage of multiple components of the jovian system (e.g., Io).</p><p>The nominal mission ends at PJ34, in June 2021, but a proposal will soon be submitted for an extended mission, with a maximum of 76 orbits up to May 2025, providing high resolution coverage of Jupiter's northern hemisphere and pole, with multiple flybys of Io, Europa, Ganymede, as well as a characterisation of the ring system. Supposedly we'll know the outcome towards the end of this year. Very late on, there'll also be opportunities for radio occultations of the jovian atmosphere. One caveat is that we'll be going into a treacherous part of the magnetosphere, an increasing challenge for the spacecraft.<br /></p><p>Candy Hansen emphasises that the Juno mission also has artists involved, and not just scientists and engineers. JunoCam, a push-frame imager built by Malin Space Science Systems, is on the payload to allow the public to participate in a planetary mission, and the great science is a bonus. At the closest point, JunoCam is observing the storms from just a few thousand kilometres up. JunoCam collects data for only 2 hours out of a 53-day orbits, so amateur observations are essential to fill in the gaps. Lighting is everything to an imaging experiment. When Juno arrived, the orientation of the orbit meant we were looking at the terminator region. As time went on, it became more challenging to observe, but now the orbit is evolving, and we'll come over onto the dusk side of Jupiter, allowing us to get great images with nice shadows. The orbit is evolving into a more southerly orientation, getting close to the north pole, with a long period to image the southern hemisphere (albeit at worsening resolution). The closest approach will be at a latitude of 28N by the nominal end of mission on PJ34, reaching 63N by the end of PJ75. For a little outreach camera, there's an awful lot of science being done.</p><p>To monitor the health of the camera, one image is taken every PJ pass with all the same settings, so we have a record as the orbit evolves to show how the camera is changing. Up to now, there is no sign of permanent damage, just a little more radiation noise, so they expect to survive right to the end of the mission.</p><p>Kevin Gill then described the image processing pipeline he uses for JunoCam images. Kevin is one of many people who process these images. He's an engineer at JPL, but does the processing on an amateur basis. The raw data has long framelets, used to produce the map-projected colour images. Kevin takes the raw framelets, as it provides better options for colour calibration. His pipeline produces maps, which then inform wide-angle perspective views, cylindrical projected detailed shots with some enhancening and sharpening; fish-eye composites (ultra-wide angle views that makes it look like you're seeing the full disc). His code also outputs meshes for 3D programmes like Blender. He's also working on stereographic images, as best he can given the dynamic nature of Juno's orbit and the interval between observations, as well as fly-over movies. The automated pipeline is open source and can be <a href="https://github.com/kmgill">found on his github</a>, uses ISIS3 and Spice. He then uses manual processing for the reprojection and combination if he's making a composite of multiple observations, using the ISIS3 suite. Blender, Photoshop, Topaz Denoise (very carefully!) and Lightroom are then used to produce his output products. This not a scientific approach, but provides a visually pleasant view (Ed: that's an understatement!). </p><h2 style="text-align: left;">The Value of Long Term Monitoring of Jupiter</h2><p>Finally, Arrate Antunano gives a presentation on how the data you're taking today might be of value to those researching Jupiter in the decades to come. Different planets display diverse cyclic activity in their weather and climate patterns. Jupiter has dramatic planetary-scale disturbances that completely alter the planet's appearance. Most studies deal with just snapshots of observations, usually as a result of one phenomenon that captures the imagination at the time. But what is the big picture here? How do things change in the long term? How cyclic are these events? Are there correlations between different events?</p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvqJHZhpqtOT4iIYc-6V1YimTkIB2Fu36O_B7zQ18Brb4qUjAd8mT7loBQAAMg1tG67Dsi0tsQacr3Dy2944COTTOCPLKexn1P9Jc2Ou1xEkKHt7J88Pf81yxc1jqSN3d5T_jDFF2vhjw/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="327" data-original-width="1338" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvqJHZhpqtOT4iIYc-6V1YimTkIB2Fu36O_B7zQ18Brb4qUjAd8mT7loBQAAMg1tG67Dsi0tsQacr3Dy2944COTTOCPLKexn1P9Jc2Ou1xEkKHt7J88Pf81yxc1jqSN3d5T_jDFF2vhjw/w533-h130/image.png" width="533" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Long-term monitoring of Jupiter's atmosphere, highlighting the expansion and contraction of the north equatorial belt - credit: Fletcher et al. (2017)<br /></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Ground-based observations are a goldmine for researchers. At infrared wavelengths, we have around 40 years of observations available since the early 1980s, providing great temporal coverage. Checking the <a href="http://pvol2.ehu.eus/pvol2/">Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory</a> (PVOL), the amateur observations span 2000 to 2020, and even older observations are present in the ALPO-Japan directory. These long-term observations at multiple wavelengths allows them to characterise temperature, composition, and aerosol changes. <p></p><p>Examples of these cyclic activities include the cloud-clearing events at the equator, where the equator brightened at 5 microns with a period of 7-years or so. This brightening h appens at the same time as the visible coloration events at the equator. The aerosol opacity decreases at the 400-600 mbar level, where the ammonia clouds are. However, we didn't see any change in ammonia or temperature, so this rejects the idea that the cloud-clearing is due to warming and evaporation of clouds. Maybe changes in the deep ammonia gas are responsible, but this is something that Juno has not yet investigated. Also using 5-micron data, some changes in the bands are observed to be anticorrelated, particularly between changes in brightness of the NEB and SEB. Finally, looking at 7.9 microns, which senses Jupiter's stratospheric temperatures, reveals how Jupiter's equatorial stratospheric winds change with time. We've known this for 30 years, but new results published in Nature Astronomy show that Jupiter's equatorial stratospheric oscillation has been disrupted twice, completely switching into a new period, and these changes coincide with substantial disturbances in the deeper atmosphere. This is unexpected, and hasn't been observed on Earth or Saturn, which have similar equatorial stratospheric oscillations. </p><p>The long-term Jupiter observations are critical for this exploration of natural jovian cycles, and Arrate would like to continue this study with reflected sunlight observations, to understand the vertical extent of the events and their interconnectivity with the deeper atmosphere, so that we can maybe predict these events in advance to be ready with our telescopes.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEincsXZPPZO7S1tsJUo7ArA6j2_Gy48JsPw6FmtynjR06bGPIL6aujhNpxdqOSfYejPwp8wj_ercBnmNEwHNgibk-vzLgcoF9-f24pxIT5nwlAw4qoybqDij2zQ0ccqvFZYrZy7_C8vNpaG/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="364" data-original-width="1334" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEincsXZPPZO7S1tsJUo7ArA6j2_Gy48JsPw6FmtynjR06bGPIL6aujhNpxdqOSfYejPwp8wj_ercBnmNEwHNgibk-vzLgcoF9-f24pxIT5nwlAw4qoybqDij2zQ0ccqvFZYrZy7_C8vNpaG/w541-h147/image.png" width="541" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Pro-Am community at the 2018 meeting at the Royal Astronomical Society in London.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-16734955602691791222020-09-21T12:03:00.001+01:002020-09-21T12:03:14.741+01:00 Ice Giant Science at EPSC 2020<p>This blog post has been written in preparation for the 2020 Europlanet Society Congress, which will be held virtually from September 21st. Contributors were asked to submit pre-recorded video presentations or 6-slide virtual posters, which would be viewed asynchronously at a time convenient for the audience. Each presentation and poster was accompanied by a text-based chat for questions, allowing for asynchronous discussion of the various presentations. However, in an effort to advertise the individual sessions and to ensure a lively discussion, the EPSC 2020 organisers scheduled short 20-minute science showcases, to be delivered by the session conveners or a selected presenter. This blog represents a summary of the Ice Giant science being presented at EPSC2020, grouping the abstracts into themes. We urge you to visit and participate in the discussion of the individual contributions, and hope for a lively meeting.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibdnlE0vA3qPF3IZXDTFE738La9aaENuI8nF1SDCiZ-LdI2HR5PC33zvZGwKV74lvv66-uVclXDWux5fA5qpmeBwAtKN8rcQOf9XJcEfZK_CZqWP5XmiJiyfcDVTYSbC-UyxxtK6hIuAN2/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1100" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibdnlE0vA3qPF3IZXDTFE738La9aaENuI8nF1SDCiZ-LdI2HR5PC33zvZGwKV74lvv66-uVclXDWux5fA5qpmeBwAtKN8rcQOf9XJcEfZK_CZqWP5XmiJiyfcDVTYSbC-UyxxtK6hIuAN2/w447-h240/image.png" width="447" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">1.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Ice Giant Atmospheres</h2><p>Guillot (514) discusses how the Ice Giants can be used as a laboratory for methane-driven convection and storms, providing insights into how moist convection works in atmospheres where the condensates are heavier than the surrounding air. They point out that the methane clouds are more readily accessible than the water clouds of Jupiter and Saturn, making this a fascinating regime to study via future missions.</p><p>Sticking with this theme, Hueso et al. (354) describe a programme of Earth-based observations of Neptune in 2019, using contributions from amateur observers to fill time-gaps between large-class facilities like Hubble. The data suggest more variability but less cloud activity in 2019 than previously, and the team uses the observed cloud features to reassess Neptune’s zonal winds. In addition, Sato et al. (080) study the evolution of dark spots and storms on Neptune via the 1.6-m Pirka telescope of Hokkaido University in 2018, using the spectrum in the near-infrared to estimate the drift rate of a storm.</p><p>The nature of the clouds themselves are explored by Toledo et al. (593), who present constraints on the formation of hazes and clouds from a coupled cloud-haze microphysical model, used to understand the vertical structure and evolutionary timescales of ice giant aerosols. Irwin et al. (241) describe observational constraints on clouds and methane in Neptune’s atmosphere, via fitting visible-light spectroscopy acquired by the VLT MUSE instrument in 2018, using the observed limb-darkening to discriminate between methane and aerosol contributions to the spectrum, and confirming the strong equator-to-pole gradient in methane gas on Neptune.</p><p>Moving into the stratosphere, Rowe-Gurney et al. (244) use Spitzer observations to reveal the properties of Uranus’ stratosphere, discovering a variation in emission as a function of longitude as the planet rotated in 2007. They demonstrate that these changes are the result of stratospheric temperature variations, and relate it to small-scale structures in bands of warm mid-latitude emission on Uranus. Roman et al. (471) use thermal infrared observations of Neptune over the past two decades to reveal surprising changes in emission, implying that processes occurring much faster than a Neptunian season are significantly modifying the temperature and/or chemistry of the stratosphere, with a substantial change occurring between 2006 and 2008.</p><p>Finally, Milcareck et al. (297) describe the development of a general circulation model for Uranus and Neptune, using state-of-the-art radiative-equilibrium models (Vatant d’Ollone, (292)) and reproducing the broad structure of Ice Giant wind fields, but generating a number of open questions concerning differences between the two planets.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">2.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Planetary Origins and Interiors</h2><p>Turning to the bulk composition of the Ice Giants, Cavalie et al. (053) explore Ice Giant chemistry via a combination of chemical modelling and Earth-based compositional measurements, concluding that a combination of in situ atmospheric probes and remote sensing are required to understand Ice Giant composition. Mousis et al. (613) describe a model of the outer region of the proto-solar nebula to understand how materials might have been delivered to the Ice Giants to explain the observed elemental enrichments of Uranus and Neptune. They suggest that these planets accreted from building blocks of grains and pebbles that condensed in the vicinity of the N2 and CO ice lines.</p><p>Scheibe et al. (640) attempt to reconcile thermal evolution models with the extreme differences in intrinsic heat flux between Uranus and Neptune, proposing and studying a conducting interface that inhibits energy transport between the ice-rich interior and the outer atmosphere.</p><p>Moving from the planets to the satellites, Li & Christou (769) revisit the idea that Triton and Nereid, by virtue of their peculiar orbits, must have been captured by Neptune. By assuming instead that the satellites formed in situ around Neptune, but were then perturbed during the period of instability suggested by the Nice Model, a small number of satellites survive the encounter and can gain Triton-like or Nereid-like orbits, challenging the conventional capture model.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">3.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Magnetospheres and Upper Atmosphere</h2><p>Gershman & DiBraccio (258) study how the solar wind couples to the Ice Giant magnetospheres, showing how solar wind magnetic pressure changes influence the strength of the coupling, and therefore hinting that magnetospheric dynamics may have a strong dependence on the solar cycle, being strongest at solar maximum.</p><p>Two techniques are explored for studying the upper atmospheric emission. Melin et al. (268) continue to monitor the long-term cooling trend of Uranus’ upper atmosphere using near-infrared emission from the H3+ ion, showing cooling by 8 K per year since records began in 1992 that they relate to the changing geometry of Uranus’ magnetic field and the solar wind over the past three decades. And Thomas et al. (797) report on the ongoing attempts to detect Uranian auroras via emission from H3+, to supplement previous detections in the ultraviolet. They used NIRSPEC on Keck in 2006 to identify fast changes in intensity that are suggestive of auroral processes, potentially the first spatially resolved infrared images of Uranian auroras.</p><p>Finally, Dunn et al. (1028) also continue to search for X-ray emissions from the Ice Giants, using Chandra observations of Uranus to show two non-detections during solar minimum and one statistically significant detection during solar maximum consistent with an X-ray emission from charge exchange or scattering of solar photons.</p><p><br /></p><h2 style="text-align: left;">4.<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Future Missions and Instruments</h2><p>The final theme of this EPSC session concerns a look ahead to future missions. Blanc et al. (984) describe the outcomes of the “Horizon 2061” foresight exercise, suggesting questions that could be addressed via a long-term plan for Ice Giant exploration, potentially with one or more spacecraft and making use of gravity assists in the 2030s. Costa Sitjà et al. (878) consider the opportunities that a long cruise to Uranus and Neptune might provide, by developing a tool to assess potential flyby encounters enroute to Neptune, searching for Jupiter Trojans, Centaurs, Trans Neptunian Objects and Jupiter Family Comets, with the aim of ultimately optimising trajectory designs.</p><p>Probst et al. (435) introduces a tool that investigates the feasibility for planetary entry probes accessing different latitudes on Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, looking at how different trajectories, approach angles, and probe designs impact the available probe sites, which will provide crucial insights for mission development. For such an atmospheric probe, Irwin et al. (306) describe the needs for a net flux radiometer instrument, able to measure the upward and downward fluxes of solar and thermal radiation as the probe descends. They evaluate how such an instrument would constrain both the radiation energy budget and the properties of the clouds and haze layers.</p><p>In addition, Molina-Cuberos et al. (523) discuss the potential for in situ probes measuring electrical properties of Ice Giant atmospheres during the probe descent. Using a model developed for Mars and Titan, the authors show how important aerosol properties are to the observed ionisation and electrical conductivity.</p><p>Tortora et al. (1042) describe the proposed Discovery-class Trident mission to Triton, specifically focussing on the capabilities of the radio science instrument to study electron densities, neutral atmospheric temperatures, and the thickness of Triton’s hydrosphere. And Lamy et al. (941) discuss the variety of radio emissions from the “radio twins” Uranus and Neptune, and how a digital high-frequency receiver could provide a low-resource instrument to study auroral and atmospheric radio and plasma waves or dust impacts.</p><p><br /></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-36305879631213943182020-09-21T10:04:00.002+01:002020-09-21T10:04:57.718+01:00Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC2020)<p>Welcome to the first day of #EPSC2020, our first major virtual conference! The conference is the annual gathering of the Europlanet Society, the first of which was in 2006. This has been a labour of love since the spring, when we realised that we would not be meeting together in Granada this year. Today, a year on from a fabulous conference in Geneva, the planetary community is now spread around the world, watching from home offices and COVID-safe workplaces, and there's no way it'll be quite the same. But we've done our best to deliver a conference that makes the most of the virtual environment we find ourselves in, being cautious not to overwhelm people with Zoom, whilst hoping to showcase the incredible diversity of European Planetary Science.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/54Swx4KlenY" width="320" youtube-src-id="54Swx4KlenY"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><p>Links on the homepage (https://epsc2020.eu) and the programme, but you have to click on the "live briefing" link, enter your login details, and then you get the Zoom link and password. The live sessions and commenting on the conference are restricted to registered attendees. </p><p>There are many ways that you can do a live meeting, so we did our research on some of the "best-practice" techniques for how others had approached them. One thing we were sure of was that we didn't want to translate our normal EPSC directly into a virtual meeting, with very long days and lots of parallel sessions. In particular, we were keen to build on the "nearly-carbon-neutral" conference scheme that had been developed as a means of mitigating the climate crisis. Following this, EPSC2020 is spread over multiple weeks, with orals and posters replaced by videos and short slideshows that are all pre-recorded so that the audience can digest them at their own leisure, irrespective of time zones. There were over a thousand abstracts submitted, more than 2/3rds of which were videos (some are public on our Vimeo page, some are private and only accessible on the EPSC website). We're hoping that the asynchronous discussions will be helpful for people, allowing them to think about questions carefully before answering them, without the terror of standing in front of an audience of 500 people. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLXD6meB0LpIVEPbDkHTztkGLUDNCkGCeeLo8dmgOu52XghnS0LSQRFGgQ-hAgxL5rEcgSYL7G8NX9Wc2CKSh9gjmHEv0F3MDhx7D1YUan49lyza8GbJfu4T6VkJgsaspGzJnY4JIc6hs9/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img data-original-height="497" data-original-width="1152" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLXD6meB0LpIVEPbDkHTztkGLUDNCkGCeeLo8dmgOu52XghnS0LSQRFGgQ-hAgxL5rEcgSYL7G8NX9Wc2CKSh9gjmHEv0F3MDhx7D1YUan49lyza8GbJfu4T6VkJgsaspGzJnY4JIc6hs9/w555-h239/image.png" title="Breakdown of EPSC2020 submissions by programme groups." width="555" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Distribution of #EPSC2020 sessions by programme group.</td></tr></tbody></table><p><br />This will be combined with a programme of live sessions: a live briefing and interviews with key members of the European community in the morning, with keynote lectures and short courses in the afternoon. These are combined with 20-minute long session showcases, where the conveners give a short summary of the asynchronous sessions. These are kept to short blocks, one in the European morning (benefiting our colleagues in Asia), and one in the European afternoon (benefitting our colleagues in the US). All will be recorded, so that people can catch up in their own time.</p><p>This is the first time that we, the organisers, have attempted anything quite like this, and it'll rely on goodwill and participation from the community to make it a success. Fingers crossed for a successful meeting!</p><p> </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-37538049866969845772020-09-17T12:01:00.002+01:002020-09-17T12:14:20.561+01:00Planetary Science Journals<p>Choosing where to publish your research is a nightmare - we tend to base the choice on cost, ability to avoid stringent word counts/figure counts, and a nebulous concept of journal quality. In an ideal world none of this should matter - science should all be open access for free (e.g., arXiv), referees should be high-quality and rewarded for their work, and no one would pay any attention to impact metrics. A non-exhaustive list of publications is below:</p><p></p><ul><li>Nature (plus Nature Astro, Nature Geophysics) and Science.</li><li>Planetary Science Journal (PSJ, replacing AJ and ApJ for planetary studies): as of 2020, this gold <a href="https://journals.aas.org/article-charges-and-copyright/">OA journal charges $61 per text quanta</a> (350 words) and $53 per figure/table. So 10,000 words and 5 figures would come to around $2000.</li><li>Nature Communications is an OA journal generally considered above Scientific Reports. They publish 5000-word articles and up to 10 display items. The open-access fees are $5,380 as of 2020.</li><li>Scientific Reports (part of Nature) is a gold OA journal that publishes ~4500-word articles, 8 display items, with an article processing fee of $1870.</li><li>Science Advances (part of Science) is a gold OA journal with a base article processing charge of $4500, but allows up to 15,000 words and 6 display items.</li><li>JGR: Planets (of which I'm an associate editor) <a href="https://www.agu.org/Publish-with-AGU/Publish/Author-Resources/Publication-fees">charges a $1000 fee</a> (£3500 for gold OA) for articles, plus $125 for every publication unit (500 words or one display item) over the standard limit of 25. So 10,000 words and 5 figures should cost you $1000 (NB currently half the price of PSJ). Managed by AGU. </li><li>Geophysical Research Letters only accepts papers of 12 publication units (500 words or one display item), <a href="https://www.agu.org/Publish-with-AGU/Publish/Author-Resources/Publication-fees">charging $500 per article </a>($2500 for gold OA) and $125 for excess units (which aren't typically allowed). Managed by AGU.</li><li>Below JGR and GRL sits Earth and Space Science (ESS), also managed by AGU.</li><li>Icarus has long been regarded as the journal of choice for the Division of Planetary Sciences, and does not charge an APC (unless gold OA is sought). Colour reproduction of figures incurs fees. Managed by Elsevier.</li><li>Planetary and Space Science - similar to Icarus in fees, also managed by Elsevier.</li><li>Space Science Reviews.</li><li>Astronomy and Astrophysics.</li><li>Monthly Notices of the RAS.</li><li>Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (by invitation only).</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-77817661499296236352020-05-07T10:20:00.000+01:002020-05-14T10:20:42.987+01:00Hubble and JunoMike Wong invited me to be a co-author on his excellent <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/ab775f">paper in ApJ Supplement</a>, which describes the Hubble and Gemini support programmes for the Juno mission:<br />
<br />
Wong, M.H., A.A. Simon, J.W. Tollefson, I. de Pater, M. Barnett, A.I. Hsu, A.W. Stephens, G.S. Orton, S.W. Fleming, C. Goullaud, W. Januszewski, A. Roman, G.L. Bjoraker, S.K. Atreya, A. Adriani, L.N. Fletcher (2020), <i>High-resolution UV/optical/IR imaging of Jupiter in 2016-2019</i>, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, Series, 247, 58 (25 pp.) (<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ab775f">http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365/ab775f</a>)<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.gemini.edu/images/pio/News/2020/pr2020_05/noirlab2011b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="800" height="297" src="https://www.gemini.edu/images/pio/News/2020/pr2020_05/noirlab2011b.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley) and team Acknowledgments: Mahdi Zamani.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Images from both facilities were released to the public and created quite a splash, with the Gemini "lucky imaging" at 5 microns even making the BBC website. Here is a collection of the media releases:<br />
<br />
<a href="https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2020/news-2020-21">Hubble Space Telescope</a><br />
<a href="https://www.gemini.edu/pr/gemini-gets-lucky-and-takes-deep-dive-jupiter-s-clouds">Gemini Observatory</a><br />
<a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/story_jump/uc-berkeley-team-probes-violent-storms-lightning-on-jupiter/">Berkeley</a><br />
<br />
The full dataset is also available via open access on the <a href="http://archive.stsci.edu/contents/newsletters/may-2020/new-data-for-the-wfcj-collection">MAST archive</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/JupiterClouds750px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="467" data-original-width="750" height="199" src="https://news.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/JupiterClouds750px.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Combined data from the Juno spacecraft, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gemini Observatory reveal a special cloud structure near a massive cluster of lightning flashes: a three-way combination of deep clouds made of water, large convective towers — essentially Jovian cumulonimbus — and clear regions with downwelling, drier air outside the convective towers. (Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, S. Brown of JPL, M.H. Wong of UC Berkeley and A. James and M. Carruthers of STScI)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-91506538217020498192020-05-06T11:19:00.002+01:002020-09-21T12:04:36.590+01:00Recording PowerpointI've been wrestling with how to record myself delivering Powerpoint slideshows, as research has shown that your audience is more engaged when they can see the speaker.<br />
<br />
In Powerpoint for Windows (with a 365 subscription) it seems that you can record both Audio and Video narration while you deliver your slides, but there doesn't appear to be a way to do this in Powerpoint for Macs (and I have the latest versions).<br />
<br />
There is a brute-force approach using Zoom (thanks to Anita Heward for pointing this out) - you can start a personal meeting room, turn on your video, and share the screen (or just the Powerpoint window). The Shift-Cmd-R starts and stops the video recording. Once the meeting is ended for all participants, the recording is saved as an MP4 in my Movies directory.<br />
<br />
Another colleague pointed me towards the free <a href="https://obsproject.com/">Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio</a>, and this seems to have solved my problem for me with even more control over content.<br />
<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiomSfqBxGDQyiJjX4mSBEhV29o3bIhWzwU_pvUWcVu1XxB4IN7Lf8iOUMwxmy_hvKe5CZQwFMQNwdz8TILqclq2UBOufkVWXRlF1s8naB7y_5VrUqIggfTNiTrx3q5sBz0WnXqAjd3MepV/s1600/OBS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1118" data-original-width="1600" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiomSfqBxGDQyiJjX4mSBEhV29o3bIhWzwU_pvUWcVu1XxB4IN7Lf8iOUMwxmy_hvKe5CZQwFMQNwdz8TILqclq2UBOufkVWXRlF1s8naB7y_5VrUqIggfTNiTrx3q5sBz0WnXqAjd3MepV/s400/OBS.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<ol>
<li>Download the OBS Studio and install on your Mac.</li>
<li>Upon opening for the first time, allow it to do the automatic configuration (i.e., I just let it set up all the defaults, and specified that I'd be using this for recording, rather than for streaming).</li>
<li>I then added a new "Video Capture" in the Source box at the bottom, allowing it access to my Mac's webcam. My face turns up in a little box in the OBS window, which I can resize and relocate as I see fit.</li>
<li>I then experimented with adding a simple "Image" in the Source Box, again resizing to whatever dimensions I wanted. But now came the tricky part - adding Powerpoint.</li>
<li>In Powerpoint, click on "set up slide show" and make sure that "Browsed by an Individual" is checked. This means that when you start displaying your slides, it will only occupy the window, rather than filling the whole screen.</li>
<li>In OBS, you can then go to "add source", select the Powerpoint window, and resize the window to whatever works best for your presentation (i.e., it might occupy 60% of your screen, leaving room for your webcam). </li>
<li>If you have the Powerpoint window and the OBS window side by side, you can then advance the slide show easily whilst watching them change in the OBS window.</li>
<li>Click on "Start Recording" and deliver your slide show, clicking on "Stop Recording" when you're done. My recording was then saved as an MKV file under "Movies" on my Mac (you can change this in settings). In OBS, go to "File > Remux Recording", choose the file you want to alter, click on "remux", and it'll generate an MP4 version of your MKV file.</li>
<li>If you want to get really snazzy, then OBS has techniques for cutting the start and end (where you'll be fiddling with start/stop recording), and even introducing fades and titles. But that's probably for the more advanced user.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
Health warning - I haven't yet tried to record a full presentation yet, this is only at the experimentation phase...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-22342214578857387952020-04-27T22:02:00.007+01:002020-09-21T12:04:20.399+01:00Virtual Conferences - Part II<div>
The ongoing Coronavirus crisis has pushed several conferences into a hasty virtual version, with varying degrees of success. As described in <a href="https://planetaryweather.blogspot.com/2020/04/virtual-conferences.html">my previous post</a>, there are opportunities to be inventive and imaginative, recognising the potential advantages of inclusivity and accessibility, and to offer something that people can participate in across the time zones. So let's see what's currently on offer.<br />
<br /></div>
<h3>
<b>LPSC 2020</b> </h3>
<div>
LPSC was cancelled in early March, without enough time to shift to a virtual format for talks and posters. Some <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2020/virtual-meetings/">virtual meetings </a>were offered spanning topics of community interest (the planetary decadal survey, NASA townhalls, etc.), and a series of <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2020/program/VECPNE_Program.pdf">Virtual Early Career Planetary Networking Events</a> are now underway, consisting of real-time online conferences via 'RingCentral' (3 slides, 5 minutes per presenter) that are hopefully being watched by prospective employers, and can then be shared online. LPSC have provided <a href="https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2020/eposterindex.cfm/">hosting for e-posters</a>, as has the Earth and Space Science Open Archive (<a href="https://www.essoar.org/">ESSOAr</a>), which is also used for the AGU. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Leigh: Despite the fact that you can then get a DOI for your contribution, there doesn't appear to have been a wide-scale uptake of this approach, as I don't see many papers on the archives. I'm not sure how many people might actually be downloading and reading them, either, unless it was really close to my research area - it's not like browsing posters and chatting to authors in person.</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h3>
EGU 2020</h3>
<div>
EGU (scheduled for early May) had more time to plan, so could be more ambitious. Using the <a href="https://egu2020.eu/sharing_geoscience_online/sharing_geoscience_online.html">#shareEGU20 hashtag</a>, EGU runs for four days in May and became free to join, although uploads of presentation materials and commenting required authors and participants to have a Copernicus user account. Abstracts had been submitted before the crisis, and charged a €40 abstract processing fee. The conference would be entirely through uploaded "displays", comments on the presentations, and real-time text chats (08:30 to 18:00 CEST). There would be no live presentations in the science sessions, nor video or audio chats. Union symposia (one per day, 10:45-12:30 CEST), great debates, and some townhall meetings would be hosted through videoconferencing.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For scientific sessions, authors could upload presentations for a month before the meeting, then a dedicated, live, text-based chat for discussion would be held for the presentations of that session. Presentations could have a <a href="https://www.egu2020.eu/sharing_geoscience_online/presentation_upload_recipe.html">variety of formats</a> - PDFs or PPTs of the slides, or even mp4 files to record a video. The important thing was that the appropriate Creative Commons License be included, and that presentation materials (and potentially comments) would remain online. This shouldn't make any difference to future publication - most journals specifically allow posting on a (not-for-profit) preprint server prior to submission. Journals allow, and usually encourage, that authors discuss their work at conferences prior to writing and submitting a manuscript.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Uploads of presentation materials were encouraged from 1 April to 31 May, and the same two-month period is valid for comments by the community and replies by the authors. Then the May 4-8th session <a href="https://egu2020.eu/sharing_geoscience_online/how_to_use_the_chats.html">chats are in real time and are time-limited</a>. EGU opens one text-based chat channel per session linked in the online programme. The link becomes active 15 minutes prior to scheduled session start and disappears 30 minutes after the scheduled end of the session. All chat channels use the software sendbird run on servers of Amazon Web Services (AWS) located in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Chats are not recorded and archived. The posts are deleted after the session ends. The text-based live chat neither involves live presentations, nor video or audio chats, in order to remain inclusive for all attendees. All orals, posters, and PICO talks were converted to 'displays' that allow those who have submitted abstracts to upload presentation materials, opt in to commenting, and participate in a live text chat during the scheduled session time.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>Leigh: I set up a personal programme for the giant planet sessions, finding a large number of withdrawn abstracts or non-presented materials. Even so, there were tonnes of talk titles, and I found little to motivate me to download and read each one. There needs to be a bit of organisation, so that talks are assembled into sub-groups and themes, rather than big long lists of links. </i></div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
<i>Those links I clicked on provided the full slide decks, but without someone talking me through the materials, I quickly lost interest. I'd much rather listen to someone tell me the story, with the central narrative and rationale that you get in a talk, rather than just reading someone's slides. I clicked through a few titles I was interested in, but there were no comments. I'm interested to see how the text chats go.</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<h3>
AAS 2020</h3>
AAS were due to hold their 236th meeting in Madison in early June, and have switched to a <a href="https://aas.org/posts/news/2020/03/236th-aas-meeting-goes-virtual">3-day version </a>of their usual summer conference (slimmed down from 4 days). The bulk of the meeting will be held in real time, restricted to those who register, and captured for later access by registrants who might have missed something in real time. Recordings of the plenary talks will be made freely available to all AAS members. Science sessions will be parallel 90-minute sessions of short talks arranged thematically, with iPoster (digital interactive) contributed posters and iPoster-Plus (presentations featuring short talks illustrated with iPosters), also arranged thematically. There would still be press conferences, but they decided not to include splinter meetings.<br />
<br />
AAS will be using Zoom Webinars (not Zoom Meetings) for science sessions and plenaries. A “host” and a small number of “participants” control the meeting and give the presentations, while the “attendees” (from dozens to hundreds) are not seen, heard, or able to control anything or share their screens. Attendees may ask questions and respond to polls initiated and controlled by the host or participants. I've seen iPosters presented at DPS meetings, where authors use standard templates to create a digital iPoster, which is then available online shortly before, during, and after the conference. iPosters can include audio narration; high-resolution, zoomable images; videos and animations; and text with (or without) embedded hyperlinks. In addition, iPosters include a "chat" feature that allows someone viewing an iPoster to interact in real time with the author.</div>
<div>
<br />
<i>Leigh: I really like the idea of the iPosters, and have seen these in action before. Having the regular orals delivered realtime via webinars means a substantial inconvenience for anyone in a different time zone, but at least they will be recorded and so could be viewed later (by attendees at least). Speakers will only be answering questions during the live sessions, but there can be virtual rooms after sessions to continue the conversation.</i></div>
<div>
<br />
<h3>
EAS 2020</h3>
The <a href="https://eas.unige.ch/EAS2020/">European Astronomical Society</a> Annual Meeting (formerly known as EWASS) was due to be held in Leiden in late June, and has moved to an online meeting using a custom-built platform from their organisers, Kuoni. It seems that registration fees are being refunded, but that the virtual meeting will charge a reduced fee (€80 for 5 days, €50 for one day). According to their <a href="https://eas.unige.ch/EAS2020/faq.jsp">FAQ page</a>, the meeting will still take place over 5 days, with some elements live, and some pre-recorded. It looks like they'll also stick to the Central European time zone, just like AAS is sticking to the US time zone, making it a challenge for participants in time zones greatly removed. For registered participants the presentations (platform and posters) will be made available after the meeting for a limited period of time (TBD). They are aiming to use interaction options like chat, Q&A and live polling, and there will be ePoster sessions. <br />
<br />
<i>Leigh: The virtual EAS is still evolving, but also seems to be aiming to use the regular time slot for their meeting, rather than distributing it over a longer time period. It'll be interesting to see how the real-time and asynchronous aspects of the conference blend together.</i><br />
<br /></div>
<div>
**This post is a work-in-progress, please check back!**</div>
Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-8798539030477199412020-04-23T22:23:00.000+01:002020-04-23T22:23:25.318+01:00Uranus from Hubble<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-theme="light"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Happy 30th Birthday to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble</a> Space Telescope! This amazing facility has helped to create an incredible record of the Ice Giant Systems, so we look back at some of our fav <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Uranus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Uranus</a> images, starting with WFPC2 images a mere 8 years after Voyager's flyby (Aug 1994): <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble30?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble30</a> <a href="https://t.co/JLMOHTiGD2">pic.twitter.com/JLMOHTiGD2</a></p>— IceGiants (@IcyGiants) <a href="https://twitter.com/IcyGiants/status/1253431947851776006?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">As Uranus' southern pole began to turn away from the Sun and summer moved on, NICMOS captured Uranus in the near-infrared in 1997, probing different cloud layers in Uranus' frigid atmosphere, as well as spotting 8 small satellites. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble30?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble30</a><a href="https://t.co/iHqL5oT58P">https://t.co/iHqL5oT58P</a> <a href="https://t.co/CYrEd8QX1o">pic.twitter.com/CYrEd8QX1o</a></p>— IceGiants (@IcyGiants) <a href="https://twitter.com/IcyGiants/status/1253431949898596356?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">NICMOS <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Uranus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Uranus</a> observations in 1998 spotted incredibly bright storm clouds in the northern winter (to the right), as the south polar 'cap' of aerosols (left) appeared to change to a bright south polar 'collar' as the summer marched on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble30?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble30</a> <a href="https://t.co/jy4BooclCr">https://t.co/jy4BooclCr</a> <a href="https://t.co/WH20nCP5Qa">pic.twitter.com/WH20nCP5Qa</a></p>— IceGiants (@IcyGiants) <a href="https://twitter.com/IcyGiants/status/1253431953799299073?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">In Jul-Aug 2006, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble30?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble30</a> ACS captured <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Uranus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Uranus</a> near the end of southern summer, with the south pole disappearing to winter. The observations discovered an enormous dark vortex (1700x3000 km), and watched the moon Ariel moving across the face of Uranus.<a href="https://t.co/dzF9KB5KfG">https://t.co/dzF9KB5KfG</a> <a href="https://t.co/Zv5rLrSzMr">pic.twitter.com/Zv5rLrSzMr</a></p>— IceGiants (@IcyGiants) <a href="https://twitter.com/IcyGiants/status/1253431960170463233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Since equinox, scientists have continued to track <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Uranus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Uranus</a> seasonal evolution from instruments like <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble30?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble30</a> STIS (right), compared to Keck images (left), between 2003 and 2015, revealing the formation of a north polar cap & collar to mirror those in '94:<a href="https://t.co/BvgS3wP0Ga">https://t.co/BvgS3wP0Ga</a> <a href="https://t.co/tEOZhZLkBl">pic.twitter.com/tEOZhZLkBl</a></p>— IceGiants (@IcyGiants) <a href="https://twitter.com/IcyGiants/status/1253431965518163969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Hubble30?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Hubble30</a> has continued to observe <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Uranus?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Uranus</a> every year through to the middle of northern spring, including this Nov 2018 image. We hope that Hubble will continue to add to this unique record of a seasonal Ice Giant for years to come!<a href="https://t.co/gRePQx28fZ">https://t.co/gRePQx28fZ</a> <a href="https://t.co/fhNyJQRlj8">pic.twitter.com/fhNyJQRlj8</a></p>— IceGiants (@IcyGiants) <a href="https://twitter.com/IcyGiants/status/1253431970417176578?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-19766999173771341172020-04-21T21:57:00.003+01:002020-09-21T12:04:05.316+01:00Virtual Conferences - Part IIt's now been 6 weeks since I last stepped foot in my office. 6 weeks of trying to be productive from home, and it feels like a vast swathe of my working time has been spend on virtual meetings via Zoom, Skype, Teams, BlueJeans, Webex.... I've even taken the lead on a few.<br />
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They're not great - lots of hours spent in front of my computer (sometimes listening via my mobile phone), often at inconvenient hours because of differences in time zones, and usually wishing the speaker would've just summarised their thoughts in an email.<br />
<br />
And now we're facing the prospect of some of the major planetary science conferences moving online, and it's abundantly clear that WE CAN'T EXPECT THIS TO BE BUSINESS AS USUAL. There has to be a better way for doing this. Thankfully, this is an issue that's already been considered by much more thoughtful people than me.<br />
<br />
<h3>
Benefits of Virtual Conferences</h3>
<div>
Here are some of the reasons why virtual conferencing really should become more frequent in the 21st century, even without global health crises preventing travel:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Climate, climate, climate: </b> The carbon footprint of academic departments is usually overwhelmed by researchers travelling across the world for meetings, and its time for a culture change if we're to do our bit. I think it's fair to admit that some of this travel is unnecessary.</li>
<li><b>Work-life balance:</b> how many weekends have been lost to travel, ready to start a meeting at 9am on a Monday? Family life disrupted because of the need to start at the beginning of the "working week?" </li>
<li><b>Inclusivity:</b> How many members of our community are we missing because of parental and other carer responsibilities? How many voices are absent because travel poses extreme challenges, financially, physically, or mentally? Shifting online might open the door to a more inclusive conference.</li>
<li><b>Less time wasted on "marginally-useful" meetings: </b>We all know them - the meetings we felt we had to show our faces at, even though we didn't have a lot to contribute, and didn't learn a lot as a result. FOMO - fear of missing out - often drives us to attend. Now we can attend them virtually, and possibly even multi-task to get other things done at the same time. </li>
</ul>
<h3>
Problems with Virtual Conferences</h3>
</div>
<div>
Here are some common problems with virtual meetings, some easier to solve than others:</div>
<div>
<ul>
<li><b>Stifled Discussions:</b> Virtual conferences are great as a one-way flow of information, either as live talks or pre-recorded presentations. But new collaborations and ideas often stem from the more informal coffees, lunches, poster sessions, and chance encounters. These casual "in-person" chats are currently hard (but not impossible) to replicate in the virtual world, and lack the "spontaneity" of people meeting in the same physical location. There's also the question of the lack of human contact, where in-person conferences might be the highlight for those working in isolation.</li>
<li><b>Multiple time zones: </b> My work is very Europe/US focussed, meaning lots of late-afternoon and evening meetings. The idea of running an 8-hour conference day virtually is just a nonsense - no one is working at their best under those circumstances, and I personally struggle to keep my brain going late in the evening. Not to mention those colleagues trying to follow from the east, in the middle of the night... so: make one-way information delivery (i.e., talks) available to watch during preferred timezones, and keep discussion meetings for a mutually-convenient (and shorter) time slot.</li>
<li><b>Lost voices: </b>Raising your hand in a big meeting can sometimes be nerve-wracking. Doing it online, when you're not sure who is listening, and in the absence of virtual cues to know how they're responding to your question (rolling their eyes, or wide-eyed astonishment), it can be extremely daunting. We need a way to make all participants comfortable and willing to contribute.</li>
<li><b>Loud voices: </b>In the same vein, some speakers will dominate the Q&A and discussion, overwhelming everyone else, and hogging all the precious time. A strong moderator, able to recognise and involve everyone, is a must for inclusive virtual conferences.</li>
<li><b>Can you hear me now? I was on mute... </b>You can play conference bingo, with phrases like this on almost every meeting. The technology is getting better and better, but often relies on the skills of the users - we shouldn't assume that all participants have good microphones, good cameras, quiet environments conducive to chats, sufficient broadband to connect, or know how to share a screen, presentation, or virtual whiteboard. </li>
<li><b>Promotion and career progression: </b> Standing on stage and delivering your first conference talk is a tremendously nerve-wracking experience, but can open doors to future jobs and collaborations. Early-career researchers rely on conference networking for opportunities, mid-career researchers need keynote and invited presentations for promotion, and the virtual world is hard-pushed to deliver this. UCSB professor Ken Hiltner describes this as "present or perish."</li>
<li><b>The art of presentation:</b> I've given short lectures via web conference, and they're hard - when I'm in front of an audience, I try to read the energy, knowing when to ramp up enthusiasm to keep people going, or when to go back over a concept because of blank, horrified faces. You play to the crowd. You don't get that sat alone at your desk. But that's a small price to pay.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<i>PS: Trying to blend virtual conferences and in-person meetings together invariably leads to problems. It's a nightmare dialling in to a meeting when the room is full of people talking to one another. Far better to go all-or-nothing, and to have everyone participating remotely so that they're on an equal footing!</i><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
<h3>
Another Way...</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Virtual conferences will probably never replicate the face-to-face interactions that we're used to. However, the COVID-19 crisis is, by necessity, leading to innovation in virtual conferencing, but this is a challenge that was already being considered as part of the <a href="https://hiltner.english.ucsb.edu/index.php/ncnc-guide/">nearly carbon-neutral (NCN)</a> conference model. That helpful guide suggests:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Speakers pre-record their conference presentations for hosting on a conference website (which can be as simple as a Wordpress site) so that they may be viewed at any time (i.e., removing the real-time requirement), giving the viewer time to think and come up with questions. Pre-recorded videos can also be better-rehearsed and polished, and also closed-captioned (in multiple languages) for greater accessibility.</li>
<li>A shared online Q&A session (organised into themed sub-panels) over 2-3 weeks, with written questions and answers, where the members of a panel respond to audience queries. Eliminating the "live Q&A" and making them "asynchronous" means that the problem of multiple time zones is removed, and removing the pressure of "on-stage" questions might allow more time to think and develop robust answers. Breakout sessions on specific themes could also be organised.</li>
<li>Archive of content (talks and Q&A transcripts) after the conference, open access across the globe. This one I worry about a little - sometimes conference talks are used to present data before publication/peer-review, and authors may be reluctant to risk any (social) media coverage ahead of key publications. Maybe a "do not cite" or a time-limited shelf life could be incorporated?</li>
</ol>
<div>
I particularly like this paragraph on Hiltner's website: <i>"Such events can result in far more efficient use of a conference goer’s time, as one can quickly scan through the text of a talk or a Q&A session for material of interest. Consequently, this NCN approach allows us to listen to all the talks of interest to us – and none of those that are not – in the order, and at a time, of our choosing"</i></div>
</div>
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<div>
Hiltner encourages conference organisers to experiment with this scheme, and I personally feel that a blend of pre-recorded talks (sometimes called "asynchronous" content), real-time live discussion ("synchronous"content), and Q&A might be the right combination of flavours, and I hope that our planetary-science conferences (DPS, EPSC, AGU, EGU, LPSC, COSPAR) find a balance. <a href="https://www.centre4innovation.org/stories/top-tips-for-remote-conferencing/">Tanja de Bie</a> of the Leiden Centre for Innovation also has a handy run-down of remote conference pros, cons, and suggestions. <br />
<br />
And the ACM guide for virtual conferences provides a low-overhead virtual conference: "<i>First, ask authors to pre-record their talks and upload the videos to YouTube. Link those video from the conference website. This involves very low overhead on the part of the conference organizers, as they do not have to deal with supporting the live presentation of all these talks. Additionally, set up a few synchronous sessions for Q&A with groups of authors and panels using one of the videoconferencing and/or Webinar systems (e.g., Zoom). Consider also setting up a Slack workspace for participants to chat before, during, and after the live sessions. The links to the live sessions can be disseminated in Slack."</i><br />
<br />
In particular for planetary science, there's an opportunity for short, focussed sub-meetings (i.e., a week-long meeting on one topic), eliminating the nightmare of overlapping parallel sessions that plague the major meetings. Why be constrained to a single week? Why not have the conference over a month, spreading out the themes? I think you still need to make it "an event" over a limited time period, so it doesn't just feel like a series of talks on a website. Provided everyone is in the same boat, why not have regional hubs, so some people could meet in person to watch presentations and hold panels?<br />
<br />
In Part II of this post, I'll try to look at some examples of virtual conferences being held in 2020, to explore the pros and cons....<br />
<br />
<h3>
Resources:</h3>
<br />
<ul>
<li>Leiden's Centre for Innovation: <a href="https://www.centre4innovation.org/stories/top-tips-for-remote-conferencing/">Top Tips for Remote Conferencing</a> by Tanja de Bie. </li>
<li>Ken Hiltner's <a href="https://hiltner.english.ucsb.edu/index.php/ncnc-guide/">nearly carbon-neutral (NCN)</a> conference model.</li>
<li>2019 <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03899-1">Nature article</a> on low-carbon, virtual science conferences.</li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EABkSzEdJk5cmMLETpSbXaeDXmFwcTz7SUXP_C3dN9k/">How to run a free online academic conference</a> by Sayre and colleagues.</li>
<li><a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.03219.pdf">How to organize an online conference</a> by Reshef et al. (looking at a Jan 2020 Photonics conference). I particularly liked their idea of a 4-slide twitter format for posters.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://flyinglessresourceguide.info/">Flying Less</a> movement and resource guide.</li>
<li><a href="https://people.clarkson.edu/~jmatthew/acm/VirtualConferences_GuideToBestPractices_CURRENT.pdf">Virtual Conferences: A Guide to Best Practices</a> by the Association for Computing Machinery (with interesting thoughts of use of live and monitored chat during synchronous plenaries, and thoughts on spanning time zones). </li>
<li>The Virtual Science Forum has some useful tips in the <a href="https://virtualscienceforum.org/#/organizerguide">Organiser guide </a>and Speaker guide.</li>
<li>And if you're planning on using Zoom, then look no further than this helpful guide from <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KLRrnm6g5YvD8QRSPwwNWq6NPk9FYvMpZPy_XEyOmMM/preview?fbclid=IwAR2OjRshegmClOrWi7ZuUjARGbd2AwzRzSX5S-7aEywPznUC_d7lvfc07hU#">Alexa Kutler</a>.</li>
</ul>
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Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-21164901697496399722020-03-20T21:12:00.001+00:002020-03-20T21:12:17.159+00:00IsolationThis week has been a long year.<br />
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It's Friday March 20th 2020, and if the world had been anywhere close to normal, I would have been hurtling down a white water rapid with old friends on a stag party today, before enjoying a night out on the town. But like a hundred million other social engagements, that's all been brought to an earth-shattering halt by a global public health crisis.<br />
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Last Sunday I started to experience griping stomach pains, which I initially put down to some dodgy food the night before (I'd been foolishly left in charge of the cooking). But by that evening, I was unable to get warm, sat shivering in a dressing gown on the sofa whilst the kids got prepped for the school week ahead. A blue lump of clammy awfulness. Fever raged all night, and I knew I had a problem the next morning - headaches, chills like ice, and moments of intense heat and dehydration. I'd been expected in the office to examine 3rd-year physics projects Monday afternoon, and it has to be damned serious for me to let people down. But that's what I had to do, sending a series of apologetic cancellation emails Monday morning (including to my fellow stag party members), before collapsing on the sofa that afternoon.<br />
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Monday evening, the UK brought in new guidance requiring all household members to self-isolate for 14 days, if even one person shows any symptoms of COVID-19, including high fever and a continuous new cough. My kids were disappointed to be missing their school friends - my daughter especially so, as she'd been practising for the school production. Soon enough though, that too was cancelled. So from Tuesday, the four of us were in self-isolation for two weeks.<br />
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The fever lasted through Monday night and into Tuesday, probably around 36 hours in total. When it finally broke, I tried to get some work done, but the griping stomach pains continued into the next day too, doubling me over in pain. I spoke to the NHS 111 line (who essentially read me everything I'd already read online, but couldn't advise any further), who put me onto a GP for reassurance and recommended some over-the-counter medication, which some kind neighbours picked up for us and left at our door. These helped, but by Wednesday afternoon the illness provided a second sting, as the fever returned with a vengeance - and once again I was in bed with high temperature and dehydration. Now 72 hours in.<br />
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Thankfully the fever had broken by Thursday morning, and the stomach pains greatly diminished. I'm left with a mild dry cough and a strange sensation of being an asthmatic, with slightly troubled breathing, particularly when climbing stairs. All this for a reasonably healthy 38-year-old.<br />
<br />
Now, all this sounds suspiciously like the symptoms of COVID-19 to me. I rarely get colds, I don't remember the last time I ever had flu-like symptoms, and I find the chances of it happening during the same week as a global pandemic escalation all a little suspicious. But clearly not impossible. So, for overseas readers, you might be wondering why I don't just get tested? That's because the lacklustre and (some might say) irresponsible responses of the UK government has been not to test the wider population, focussing only on hospitals. Not only does this mean that the numbers of infections you've been reading about are nonsense, but also that it's going to be near-impossible to track the spread of this disease. Plus, it means I can't know whether I'm now immune, nor whether my family are all self-isolating for no reason. In short: the UK needs to step up its testing as a matter of urgency.<br />
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If it is COVID-19, where might I have caught this from? Up until Tuesday 10th March I'd been working from the office, commuting to work every day by train, and interacting with the students. I started home working on the Wednesday out of an abundance of caution, but I'm so glad I did, as it limited my contact during the potential 5 days of being asymptomatic, before my fever started on Sunday. One superb reason why people should be taking the social distancing guidelines seriously.<br />
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A lot has changed in a week - schools all closed yesterday. University of Leicester brought forward end of term to today. I've had all future meetings cancelled or postponed. Weddings put off to future, happier times. My diary is empty. They've ordered all the pubs closed. My wife is a key worker, so I'm facing the prospect of home schooling for at least part of each week for months to come, meaning productivity will drop to somewhere near zero. But all of these are nothing compared to what some are about to go through. I've been touched by the kindness and generosity of our friends and family while we've been self-isolating - we'll all need so much more of this if we're to cope with the dark times ahead.<br />
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And finally, permit me to be blunt and angry for a moment: to the cretins and morons who are selfishly stockpiling or flouting the guidelines on social distancing, stop. Just stop. Your stupidity could have catastrophic consequences for all of us, and particularly the most vulnerable in our society. I hope your victims have the opportunity to forgive you.<br />
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Good luck everyone, stay healthy, and stay kind.<br />
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<br />Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-57161691957162906622020-02-26T21:11:00.002+00:002020-02-26T21:11:44.962+00:00Examining Ice Giants With NASA’s Webb Telescope<i>From a NASA/Goddard press release on February 26th 2020, covering our Guaranteed Time Observations of Uranus and Neptune:</i><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/imagebtwofacesofuranus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="800" height="155" src="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/imagebtwofacesofuranus.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credits: NASA, ESA, and M. Showalter (SETI Institute); Right: NASA, ESA, L. Sromovsky and P. Fry (U. Wisconsin), H. Hammel (Space Science Institute), and K. Rages (SETI Institute)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Far-flung Uranus and Neptune — the ice giants of our solar system — are as mysterious as they are distant. Soon after its launch in 2021, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will change that by unlocking secrets of the atmospheres of both planets.<br />
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The cold and remote giant planets Uranus and Neptune are nicknamed the “ice giants” because their interiors are compositionally different from Jupiter and Saturn, which are richer in hydrogen and helium, and are known as the “gas giants.” The ice giants are also much smaller than their gaseous cousins, being intermediate in size between terrestrial planets and the gas giants. They represent the least-explored category of planet in our solar system. Scientists using Webb plan to study the circulation patterns, chemistry and weather of Uranus and Neptune in a way only Webb can.<br />
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“The key thing that Webb can do that is very, very difficult to accomplish from any other facility is map their atmospheric temperature and chemical structure,” explained the studies’ leader, Leigh Fletcher, an associate professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom. “We think that the weather and climate of the ice giants are going to have a fundamentally different character compared to the gas giants. That’s partly because they’re so far away from the Sun, they’re smaller in size and rotate faster on their axes, but also because the blend of gases and the amount of atmospheric mixing is very different compared with Jupiter and Saturn.”<br />
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All the gases in the upper atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune have unique chemical fingerprints that Webb can detect. Crucially, Webb can distinguish one chemical from another. If these chemicals are being produced by sunlight interacting with the atmosphere, or if they’re being redistributed from place to place by large-scale circulation patterns, Webb will be able to see that.<br />
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These studies will be conducted through a Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) program of the solar system led by Heidi Hammel, a planetary scientist and Webb Interdisciplinary Scientist. She is also Vice President for Science at the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) in Washington, D.C. Hammel’s program will demonstrate the capabilities of Webb for observing solar system objects and exercise some of Webb’s specific techniques for objects that are bright and/or are moving in the sky.<br />
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<b>Uranus: The Tilted Planet</b><br />
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Unlike the other planets in our solar system, Uranus — along with its rings and moons — is tipped on its side, rotating at roughly a 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. This makes the planet appear to roll like a ball around the Sun. That weird orientation — which may be the result of a gargantuan collision with another massive protoplanet early in the formation of the solar system — gives rise to extreme seasons on Uranus.<br />
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When NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Uranus in 1986, one pole was pointing directly at the Sun. “No matter how much Uranus would spin,” Hammel explained, “one half was in complete sunlight all the time, and the other half was in total darkness. It’s the craziest thing you can imagine.”<br />
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Disappointingly, Voyager 2 saw only a billiard-ball smooth planet covered in haze, with only a scant handful of clouds. But when Hubble viewed Uranus in the early 2000s, the planet had traveled a quarter of the way around in its orbit. Now the equator was pointed at the Sun, and the entire planet was illuminated over the course of a Uranian day.<br />
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“Theory told us nothing would change,” said Hammel, “But the reality was that Uranus started sprouting up all kinds of bright clouds, and a dark spot was discovered by Hubble. The clouds seemed to be changing dramatically in response to the immediate change in sunlight as the planet traveled around the Sun.”<br />
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As the planet continues its slow orbital trek, it will point its other pole at the Sun in 2028.<br />
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Webb will give insight into the powerful seasonal forces driving the formation of its clouds and weather, and how this is changing with time. It will help determine how energy flows and is transported through the Uranian atmosphere. Scientists want to watch Uranus throughout Webb’s life, to build up a timeline of how the atmosphere responds to the extreme seasons. That will help them understand why this planet’s atmosphere seems to go through periods of intense activity punctuated by moments of calm.<br />
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<b>Neptune: A World of Supersonic Winds</b><br />
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Neptune is a dark, cold world, yet it is whipped by supersonic winds that can reach up 1,500 miles per hour. More than 30 times as far from the Sun as Earth, Neptune is the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. Its existence was predicted by mathematics before its discovery in 1846. In 2011, Neptune completed its first 165-year orbit since its discovery.<br />
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Like Uranus, this ice giant’s very deep atmosphere is made of a thick soup of water, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and methane over an unknown and inaccessible interior. The accessible upper layers of the atmosphere are made of hydrogen, helium and methane. As with Uranus, the methane gives Neptune its blue color, but some still-mysterious atmospheric chemistry makes Neptune’s blue a bit more striking than that of Uranus.<br />
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“It’s the same question here: How does energy flow and how is it transported through a planetary atmosphere?” explained Fletcher. “But in this case, unlike Uranus, the planet has a strong internal heat source. That heat source generates some of the most powerful winds and the most short-lived atmospheric vortices and cloud features of anywhere in the solar system. If we look at Neptune from night to night, its face is always shifting and changing as these clouds are stretched and pulled and manipulated by the underlying wind field.”<br />
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Following the 1989 Voyager 2 flyby of Neptune, scientists discovered a bright, hot vortex — a storm — at the planet’s south pole. Because the temperature there is higher than everywhere else in the atmosphere, this region is likely associated with some unique chemistry. Webb’s sensitivity will allow scientists to understand the unusual chemical environment within that polar vortex.<br />
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<b>Just the Beginning</b><br />
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Fletcher advises to be prepared for seeing phenomena on Uranus and Neptune that are totally unlike what we’ve witnessed in the past. “Webb really has the capability to see the ice giants in a whole new light. But to understand the continual atmospheric processes that are shaping these giant planets, you really need more than just a couple of samples,” he said. “So we compare Jupiter to Saturn to Uranus to Neptune, and by that, we build up a wider picture of how atmospheres work in general. This is the beginning of understanding how these worlds are changing with time.”<br />
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Hammel added, “We now know of hundreds of exoplanets — planets around other stars — of the size of our local ice giants. Uranus and Neptune provide us ground truth for studies of these newly discovered worlds.”<br />
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The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world’s premier space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.<br />
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For more information about Webb, visit www.nasa.gov/webb.<br />
<br />
Rob Gutro<br />
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.<br />
301-286-4044<br />
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov<br />
<br />
Ann Jenkins / Christine Pulliam<br />
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore<br />
410-338-4488 / 410-338-4366<br />
jenkins@stsci.edu / cpulliam@stsci.edu<br />
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Last Updated: Feb. 26, 2020<br />
Editor: Rob GarnerLeigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-30381721325227284422019-12-03T12:57:00.002+00:002019-12-03T12:59:29.567+00:00First Maps of Uranus' StratosphereDr. Mike Roman of @PhysicsUoL has published the first IR maps of Uranus' cold stratosphere using the @ESO VISIR instrument, showing warm 'caps' of hydrocarbon emission, and evidence of mid-latitude upwelling from the troposphere to the stratosphere.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYi_ldrw_qs5o_ZCXXTPo3p_mbqiNMU1ML5UF3T3GCRkqXrk8137hQnv0we2ORsI0Kb95RoSvqavrRbchxnSUYNXnh2XWJKl1vFK5joS2Uo-ZfEVE6zvVL7MGNjrQ3omDipW_zV_LMa1B/s1600/2019roman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1590" data-original-width="1598" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYi_ldrw_qs5o_ZCXXTPo3p_mbqiNMU1ML5UF3T3GCRkqXrk8137hQnv0we2ORsI0Kb95RoSvqavrRbchxnSUYNXnh2XWJKl1vFK5joS2Uo-ZfEVE6zvVL7MGNjrQ3omDipW_zV_LMa1B/s320/2019roman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The image contrasts troposphere (warm equator and poles, cool mid-latitudes) and stratosphere (warm poleward of ±30 degrees, cool equator), and has a bonus: first thermal-IR glimpses of #Uranus' rings at 18 µm (published with ALMA data in Molter et al., https://t.co/VzFp5XMb1K)<br />
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We combined Mike's VISIR thermal maps with a seasonal photochemistry model from Julie Moses (https://t.co/7nnY4vDM8P) to predict what #Uranus would have looked like if we'd had a VLT for decades... here's a GIF spanning 1966-2050 in two wavelengths. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6UXvl9TknhSpeeLRLgbnn2sTO06O9AP9dGxeoCh38KtSd4PHR8L6gYKbKS6kUEFvRWhTpXsV0y8f-J1BLJ9EBchxSnM5T9GF7Fkv3wuG28r0C1DLPbqbYjHO2dnJmUx-moJSWh9CFE8l3/s1600/2019roman_uranus_animation.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6UXvl9TknhSpeeLRLgbnn2sTO06O9AP9dGxeoCh38KtSd4PHR8L6gYKbKS6kUEFvRWhTpXsV0y8f-J1BLJ9EBchxSnM5T9GF7Fkv3wuG28r0C1DLPbqbYjHO2dnJmUx-moJSWh9CFE8l3/s320/2019roman_uranus_animation.gif" width="160" /></a></div>
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But this is *only* two wavelengths - with the @NASAWebb MIRI instrument we hope to get full spectral and spatial maps of Uranus' cold stratosphere to understand how/why its chemistry/circulation differs to other worlds, so for us #WebbIsWorthTheWaitLeigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-42371253279491917572019-11-25T09:57:00.002+00:002019-11-25T09:57:36.250+00:00Why Study Planetary Atmospheres?<b><i>How does looking at weather on other worlds help inform our understanding of the Earth’s atmosphere?</i></b><br />
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Think of all the planets in our solar system as offering a continuum of different outcomes for atmospheric evolution, based primarily on the soup of species that were initially accreted by the protoplanet, the distance of the planet from the Sun today, and the dynamical properties of the planet (e.g., its size and rate of rotation, which determine the banded pattern of winds). By comparing how atmospheric meteorology, chemistry, clouds and dynamics differ from one world to the next, we get a better understanding of the physical and chemical rulebook that governs what an atmosphere (or a climate) will actually be like. Science is all about experimentation – tweaking one parameter and seeing how a system changes. We can’t do that sort of mass experimentation on our home world (well, ahem, ignoring the massive amount of CO2 we’re pumping into our fragile atmosphere), but the planets of our solar system (and indeed, exoplanets) offer a ready-made experiment, out there for us to explore. If we find that a theory of atmospheres based on Earth doesn’t work for Mars, or for Saturn, then we need to know why it doesn’t work – and that might mean tweaking the theory.<br />
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Now, that all might sound straightforward, and ultimately is the direction planetary atmospheric scientists might want to head. But for now, we know that the conditions are so different from world to world that it’s hard to determine whether our universal theories are inaccurate, or whether the data are simply incomplete or misleading. For example, Saturn has no solid boundaries (mountains, continents, valleys) to get in the way of perfect fluid dynamical flows, so it’s a very different regime from Earth. Furthermore, its clouds and precipitation exist in a hydrogen rich atmosphere (the lightest gas in the universe), which is totally different to the Earth’s nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. So today, I’d say we’re at the stage (with missions like Cassini and Juno) of trying to properly measure and observe these unusual atmospheres. The next step is to confirm that we can recreate them numerically as a simulation (in just the same way as a terrestrial weather and climate model works).<br />
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<b><i>How can other planets give us a glimpse of our future?</i></b><br />
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A lot of what I said above also applies here – our planet exists of a continuum of planetary types, showing how worlds can end up in different states depending on small changes at the start of their evolution. Take Venus, Earth, and Mars, for example: these worlds might all have started off under conditions that weren’t so very different, but over the aeons those differences were amplified – Venus becoming the hellish world of high temperatures and corrosive atmosphere; Mars freezing to become a barren desert. These are great examples of divergent evolution from shared origins. Now, we humans have been doing an uncontrolled experiment with our own fragile atmosphere since the industrial revolution, vastly upsetting the balance of molecules in our atmosphere and leading to today’s climate emergency. Venus stands as a stark warning of what happens to worlds with too much carbon dioxide. Mercifully, we know that this is avoidable, if we only had the willpower to change our ways.Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-840456155719411378.post-51617580044100534422019-06-26T13:38:00.000+01:002019-07-08T22:24:05.972+01:00All About Space: Why Explore the Ice Giants?In June 2019 I was asked to provide an entry for <i>All About Space</i> magazine's "Ask Space" section, with the following topic:<br />
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<img alt="All About Space Spring 2019" src="https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/knR5gEHeGJChpQfEbGbvdT-320-80.jpg" /></div>
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<b><i>Why is it important to study the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune?</i></b><br />
Dr. Leigh Fletcher<br />
Associate Professor in Planetary Science, University of Leicester<br />
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Uranus and Neptune have never had a dedicated spacecraft mission, having been visited only once by the brief flyby mission of Voyager 2, three decades ago. These distant Ice Giants are the least-explored type of planet in our Solar System, intermediate between the big hydrogen-rich Gas Giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and the smaller rocky planets. And yet Neptune-sized worlds appear to be commonplace in our galaxy, a natural outcome of the chaotic process of planet formation. A mission to these icy worlds is the logical next step in humanity’s exploration of our planetary system, to understand how Uranus and Neptune formed, to explore their deep water-rich interiors and exotic hot ices, their stormy atmospheres, and their complex magnetic fields that are totally unlike anything witnessed at Jupiter and Saturn. The two worlds are superb examples of how planets with shared origins can go down different evolutionary paths: Neptune as the archetype for Ice Giants, with its seasonal tilt and powerful winds; Uranus as the oddball, with its extreme tilted inclination and sluggish atmosphere. And both worlds harbour diverse satellite systems, from Uranus’ collection of natural icy satellites with evidence of extreme geological activity, to Neptune’s captured satellite Triton, a visitor from the more distant Kuiper Belt, which may harbour a sub-surface ocean and exhibits erupting geysers from its surface. For all these reasons and more, scientists across the globe are urging their space agencies to mount an ambitious robotic mission to explore these worlds in the coming decade.<br />
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Leigh Fletcherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16534449109734611373noreply@blogger.com0