Our understanding of the very high energy (VHE) universe has progressed rapidly during the last several years as a result of new instruments and exciting discoveries. In particular, ground-based telescopes, such as VERITAS in southern Arizona, and the space-based Fermi telescope have discovered many astrophysical sources of VHE gamma rays, including pulsars, supernova remnants, binary star systems, blazars and radio galaxies.
Clouds and fogs are common occurrences of water in Earth atmosphere. In the lower atmosphere these water droplets substantially impact the composition of the troposphere by interacting, transforming and, sometimes, removing gases and particles. This processing of atmospheric components by fogs and clouds has impacts in terms of climate, biogeochemical fluxes and even air pollution.
The May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens ushered in the modern era of volcano monitoring, and as a result we are on occasion able to identify increases in the likelihood of an eruption in the months to days before they occur. However, we still struggle to tie the observed monitoring signals to specific processes occurring in the magmatic system over the centuries to days prior to an eruption. In other words, what are the specific processes that trigger eruptions and how long do these processes take?
The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and the School of Earth and Space Exploration are located on opposite sides of ASU’s Tempe campus. This spatial arrangement is a key part of a larger, though rarely discussed, plan. The “Architects” of the University fear the dangers that might result from the mixing, or even close proximity, of such opposing disciplines.
The previous paragraph is probably false. How would we prove that?
In what sense might it be true?
The return of comet samples collected by the NASA Stardust mission provided a unique opportunity to do detailed laboratory analyses on materials that formed small icy bodies at the edge of the solar system. Unexpectedly, isotopically anomalous presolar grains were found to be only a trace component.
The Psyche mission, lead by ASU, has been selected as the fourteenth in the NASA Discovery program. This mission will investigate what is likely an exposed planetary metallic core, the asteroid (16) Psyche. In this talk I'll describe our partners, our spacecraft, instrument, trajectory, and operations plans, and the questions we are investigating with the mission. I'll also talk about the intense process of planning and proposing the mission.
MESSENGER, a mission in NASA's Discovery Program, was the first spacecraft to orbit Mercury and only the second to visit the planet. MESSENGER orbited this planetary oddball for four Earth years (2011-2015), mapping and determining the elemental composition of the surface, probing areas of permanent shadow at the poles, and making measurements of topography, the exosphere, magnetic field, and gravitational field.
Human activities are rapidly changing the biosphere, calling for innovative ways to measure, monitor and manage ecosystems at large geographic scales. Fortunately, the science and technology landscape is also evolving fast to meet the challenge of better managing the biosphere in the coming decades. In this lecture, I will explain an advanced Earth mapping project called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, and how we are using it to explore and conserve forests undergoing land use and climate change.
The history of modern astronomy can be seen as the quest to achieve the best possible observational sensitivity by building larger and larger telescopes and more and more sensitive instruments. However, there is another effective way to improve the observational sensitivity. That is, to discover and study sources that are strongly magnified by the effects of gravitational lensing.
