Solar System Remnants
The July meeting of the Madison Astronomical Society will again be held online. Our guest speaker is Jordan Marché of the UW Madison. Jordan’s talk is entitled: “Solar System Remnants.”
The ‘golden age’ of planetary exploration continues unabated. Along with all of the major planets and their principal satellites, spacecraft have explored the dwarf planets Pluto and Ceres, the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth (formerly Ultima-Thule), together with a number of large and small asteroids and comets. This talk presents an overview of many of the latest surveys and discoveries concerning these ‘minor’ members of the Solar System, along with implications for how they have redirected the evolution of life here on Earth. This talk will be delivered live by Zoom; questions and answers can be addressed.
About the Speaker
Jordan Marché is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He earned both his bachelor’s degree in Astronomy (1977) and a master’s degree in Planetarium Education (1978) from Michigan State University. He later earned a Ph.D. in the History of Astronomy (1999) from Indiana University, with a study of the American planetarium community. This work was revised and published (2005) as a book: Theaters of Time and Space: American Planetaria, 1930-1970.
Jordan was in charge of school programs at the Fleischmann Planetarium, University of Nevada-Reno (1980-1983), and directed the planetarium at the North Museum, Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (1983-1990). He was also an assistant professor of astronomy at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania (2005-2008). In addition, he served on the editorial board for the first two editions of the Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomy (Springer, 2007; 2014). As an astronomical hobbyist, he has done photographic astrometry of asteroids and comets, performed optical ray tracings, and designed and built several reflecting telescopes. He has also built (or helped to build) four observatories; three of which had rotating domes.
The July meeting will be a virtual event, hosted with Zoom. Members will receive an email with link and instructions to join a day or two before the event. Again this month we are opening the virtual meeting up to Facebook Group members who may want to join in. If you would like to attend the MAS virtual meeting, send an email to madisonastro.info@gmail.com by noon Friday July 10 to let us know of your interest. We will email you the Zoom link at 3pm Friday July 10 that will get you into the meeting at 7:30 on Friday evening.