"New Horizons and the Solar Systems third zone".

Guest Speaker

Thursday, 9th September 2021 (19:45 - 22:00)

Venue: Virtual Meeting

Please note that the evenings meeting will start at the normal time of 19:45 hrs but the guest speaker will not start until 20:45 hrs as he will be speaking from the United States, thankyou.

The first hour of the programme will consist of the normal second half this being notices, gallery and general information and chat.

 

This presentation will cover the exploration of the Pluto system by NASA's New Horizons probe in 2015, with emphasis on how even tiny planets can remain geologically active far from the Sun.  Pluto is not alone.  It is among the largest in a vast 3rd zone of the Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune.  At the beginning of 2019, New Horizons encountered Arrokoth, a much smaller and more typical object in this Kuiper belt of icy debris.  Between the small building blocks like Arrokoth and large, complex planetary systems like Pluto, much more exploring remains to be done at the distant edge of the Solar System.

Speaker: William Grundy

William Grundy is a planetary scientist at Lowell Observatory in Arizona.  He studies outer Solar System via observational, theoretical, and laboratory techniques as well as direct exploration via space probes.

William Grundy has been involved with NASA's New Horizons mission since its inception more than 20 years ago.