C H R I S T M A S L E C T U R E 2020
"Philae lands in skull-top crevice: An engineering & scientific detective story"
By Laurence O'Rourke,
of ESA, Madrid, Spain.
7PM Monday 14th of December.
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ABOUT THE LECTURE
This lecture will be presented on the ZOOM platform in line with Public Health Guidelines.
Laurence O'Rourke will present the results of his Nature paper published on the 28th October last which covers the discovery of super soft 4.5 billions-of-years-old ice on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko thanks to the Rosetta Mission.
The speaker will summarise the work carried out to prove that the Philae lander touched down on skull-top ridge digging into two cometary boulders and exposing their icy interior, which is softer than cappuccino froth or the foam on the waves on the seashore. The porosity found inside the cometary boulders was equivalent to that found for the interior of the comet itself. This is an engineering and scientific detective story which started in August 2016, when a strange ice feature was spotted in two images taken as part of Philae's search campaign.
ESA's Laurence O'Rourke, who played the leading role in finding Philae in the first instance, was also determined to locate the previously undiscovered second touchdown site.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Laurence O'Rourke is from Mullingar and has being working in the European Space Agency since 1996, located at 3 of its establishments (ESTEC, ESOC and currently ESAC in Madrid) as an Engineer and a Scientist. He writes regularly for Astronomy Ireland and has given several talks to the society.
He has worked on 5 satellite missions for ESA during this time. In Rosetta, he was part of the flight control team in ESOC at the time of its launch in 2004. After launch he moved to work on the Integral mission (ESA Gamma Ray observatory) followed by the Herschel mission (ESA Infrared Space observatory). On Herschel he was the deputy science operations manager for the mi ssion. I n 2011 he returned to work on the Rosetta mission and is one of two Science Operations Managers in the mission leading a team in ESAC. This team interacts with the 11 instrument teams and the Philae Lander teams located around Europe and the US. The team is responsible for the planning of their science operations which involves designing the science trajectory around the comet, pointing the spacecraft at the comet, providing the instrument commanding and checking the success of the executed observations when they have been completed on board. Laurence is also the ESA Philae Lander System Engineer and was the ESA representative during the landing of Philae in the Lander Control Centre.
He has published various science articles on comets and asteroids with his most notable recent publication being in Nature concerning the first confirmed detection of water in the asteroid belt, namely on Dwarf Planet (1) Ceres. Based upon that paper he has been awarded the O'Rourke asteroid by the IAU.
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Booking Information
| Date | Monday 14th December |
| Time | 7:00p.m. |
| Venue | This Lecture will be presented via ZOOM which you can download HERE You must however book in advance below. Details on how join in the lecture will be sent to you in advance of the lecture. |
| Admission | This is a free lecture however we very much welcome your support in the form of donations. |
| Booking | Call 086 06 46 555 to book tickets and make a donation (if you wish) over the phone. |
Acknowledgment: Astronomy Ireland would like to thank the TCD Astrophysics Research Group for hosting our live Astronomy Ireland public lectures in Trinity College Dublin.