College hosts experts on Chesapeake Impact Crater and Planet Mercury

College hosts experts on Chesapeake Impact Crater and Planet Mercury

CHESTERTOWN — The Earth and Planetary Science Program by the side of Washington College will progress the similarity looking and thinking skyward with two space-related lectures in mid-October. On Oct. 17, a researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey will share could you repeat that? He has learned almost the Chesapeake Bay force cavity, a 24-mile eclectic dent in Earth’s come out formed by a meteor. And on Oct. 21, a deep space scientist will jargon almost single of the on the whole captivating planets in our solar order, Mercury. Both procedures are free of charge and friendly to the community.


Professor Karl Kehm, who ordered the talks, sees them cobblestone the way in support of the arrival of the comet ISON, which is scheduled to conflagration across Earth’s sky in deferred November. “The experts are maxim it will either be the ‘Comet of the Century’ or buzz not worth it,” thought Kehm, who teaches physics and environmental studies. “But either way, it be supposed to progress the community alert on the heavens.”

The guest lecturer in support of Thursday, Oct. 17, is David Powars, a exploration geologist based by the side of the Geology and Paleoclimate Science Center in Reston, Va. His jargon on the Chesapeake Bay Impact Crater will take place by the side of 4:30 p.M. In Litrenta Lecture Hall, Toll Science Center.

Powars leads his Center’s geological investigation of Coastal Plain deposits in the Chesapeake Bay Region as part of the USGS’s Atlantic Watershed Project. Working as a subsurface and surficial geological mapper, he was the principal discoverer of the Chesapeake Bay force cavity, an accomplishment so as to earned the Thomas Jefferson Award from the Virginia Museum of Natural History. He will explain how scientists were able to sample in concert the crater’s story—that it was formed a little 35 million years in the past whilst a mile-wide chunk of deep space slammed with catastrophic force into a shallow ocean anywhere part of eastern Virginia is at the moment. Powars will take in hand how the force cavity affects residents of coastal Virginia at present.

On Monday, Oct. 21, by the side of 4:30 p.M., Larry Nittler, an astrophysicist from the Carnegie Institution in support of Science who serves as Deputy Principal Investigator on NASA’s MESSENGER mission, will present a jargon upper-class “Messenger by the side of Mercury: Exploring an Enigmatic Planet.” The event takes place in Litrenta Lecture Hall, Toll Science Center.

The MESSENGER spacecraft (the surname comes from MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) began orbiting Mercury in 2011 and has returned a wealth of technical data almost the planet’s come out, interior, magnetic deal with and ambiance. Nittler’s exploration focuses on the laboratory analysis and technical implications of extraterrestrial supplies, counting meteorites and interplanetary dust particles. Modish addition to his product on Messenger, he is involved in the analysis of cometary samples from NASA’s Stardust mission and solar wind samples returned by the Genesis mission.