Spring 2021
| Speaker: |
Joshua Knicely |
| Title: |
"How do we get to Hell? The Science and Engineering of Safely Landing |
| Date: | February 5, 2021 |
| Time: | 11:45am |
| Location: | Contact instructor for details. jemezger@alaska.edu |
About:
Joshua Knicely, PhD student in Geophysics, UAF; studies volcanism and the near surface
of Venus; only student participant of NASA’s Venus Flagship Mission (VFM) study
Abstract:
Venus is an extremely difficult target to study, but worth the effort. The tesserae,
the highly tectonized and ancient highlands of Venus, will help constrain the conditions
necessary for plate tectonics and habitability, as well as answer dozens of other
long standing (and some new) scientific questions. But, they aren’t easy to get to.
Our highest resolution imagery and topography are ~100 m/pixel and ~1-2 km/pixel;
the surface boils at ~840F; and the surface is obscured by the cloud deck and atmospheric
Rayleigh scattering until within a few kilometers of the tesserae. In this talk, we’ll
discuss why we need to visit the tesserae, the hurdles we have to cross, and some
of the ways in which landers and unmanned aerial vehicles will cross those hurdles
and get the data that we need.
Passcode: 8+vY19!t