LASP Science Seminars

LASP Science Seminars

LASP seminars are generally held every Thursday at 4:00 PM on Zoom and in person.
If you are interested in attending, please contact Heather Mallander to be added to the mailing list.

We are currently seeking speakers for our Fall 2022 seminar series. If you or a colleague would like to give a seminar, please contact one of our Science Seminar Committee members:

Kevin McGouldrick (Planetary)
Yunqian Zhu (Earth Atmosphere)
Hadi Madanian (Space Physics)
David Wilson (Solar/Stellar)

Upcoming Science Seminars

June 8, 2023
STARSHADES, A CU Technology: The Only Known Path to Spectroscopy of Exo-Earths
Webster Cash
(CU/APS)
The search for Life in the Universe is among the few universally supported goals in the sciences. In the last 25 years it has been established, through indirect means, that planetary systems are a feature of...
June 15, 2023
Tracing water and organics in the Solar System using ground-based and space telescopes: how important is the UV?
Fernando Tinaut-Ruano
(Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias & University of La Laguna, Department of Physics)
Primitive asteroids (PAs) are the remaining building blocks of our Solar System (SS) study their composition, location and evolution will help us understanding how different materials travel along the Solar System and how they appeared on...
June 22, 2023
The Difficult Gestation and Birth of the International Programs of Climate Change and Space Weather
Juan G. Roederer
(LASP)
The international programs of Climate Change (led by the IPCC) and Space Weather (originally created as the GEM project) are twins conceived in 1984 and born in 1988, mothered by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) and...
July 19, 2023
The molecular origin of life: The formation, evolution, and detection of prebiotic molecules in space
Niels Ligterink
(University of Bern, Switzerland)
The origin of life revolves around the question how small, simple molecules formed, gradually increased in chemical complexity, and eventually started working together to form a proto-organism. Within this concept, one exciting prospect is that (some...

Past Science Seminars

June 1, 2023
Studying the Origin of Near-Earth Plasma
Alex Glocer
(NASA-GSFC)
The origin of near-Earth plasma has been a topic of intense scientific study since the beginning of the space age. Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic cavity carved out of the solar wind by the planet’s intrinsic magnetic...
May 18, 2023
The ongoing hunt to detect radio emission from the Tau Boötis exoplanetary system
Jake Turner
(Cornell University)
One of the most important properties of exoplanets has not yet been directly detected despite decades of searching: the presence of a magnetic field. Observations of an exoplanet’s magnetic field would yield constraints on its planetary...
May 4, 2023
Mesospheric Response to the 2022 Hunga Tonga - Hunga Ha`apai Volcanic Eruption
Wandi Yu
(Hampton University)
On January 15, 2022, the eruption of a submarine volcano in Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha`apai (HTHH, 20.54°S, 175.38°W) resulted in a volcanic plume that reached a height of 57 km, increasing the total stratospheric water...
April 27, 2023
Abnormal, Active, and Asymmetric Magnetospheric System of Uranus
Xin Cao
(LASP)
Compared to other terrestrial and gas giant planets, Uranus has an abnormal, active and asymmetric magnetosphere, which results from its large obliquity and its highly tilted off-centered dipole field. We analyzed the diurnal and seasonal variations...
April 20, 2023
Exploring the Atmospheres of Exoplanets in the Era of JWST
Catriona Murray
(CU/APS)
The launch of JWST has ushered in a new phase of exoplanet transmission spectroscopy with unprecedented spectral resolution and wavelength coverage. The Early Release Science (ERS) program from JWST has already yielded exciting discoveries, including the...
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