Past Science Seminars
November 13, 2025
What can the atmospheric escape from exoplanets tell us about our own solar system?
Matthäus Schulik
(Imperial College London)
The study of atmospheric escape from exoplanets has undergone significant advances in the recent decade.The discovery of routinely detectable exoplanet transits in the Helium 10830A line have opened up pathways to trace the total line-of-sight column...
November 6, 2025
Rocket launches and satellite re-entry: Estimating how the coming age of LEO megaconstellations may impact the atmosphere
Chris Maloney
(CIRES)
The number of rockets and satellites launched into space has rapidly increased since the late 2010’s as a response to the expanding interest in both the commercial and government opportunties available in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)....
December 4, 2025
Science Traceability Matrix (STM): my journey from Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to Space Weather Investigation Frontier (SWIFT)
Mojtaba Akhavan-Tafti
(University of Michigan)
NASA science missions are often complex systems of systems, involving various stakeholders, including the United States’ Congress. To ensure a clear and concise communication of expectations, requirements, and constraints, NASA has adopted the Science Traceability Matrix...
October 30, 2025
Ice and Climate at the Poles of Mars
Isaac B. Smith
(York University)
Mars famously has two ice caps, one at each pole, and two volatiles: carbon dioxide and water. Additionally, at both poles, seasonal ice deposits in the winter darkness and sublimates throughout the spring to expose the...
October 23, 2025
Unlocking the Moon, Unlocking the Solar System
Dr. Ben Bussey
(Intuitive Machines)
The Moon offers multiple types of resources. It is a scientific resource, an exploration resource, and also a commercial resource. The Moon is a cornerstone for multiple science disciplines, not just lunar; it can help us...
October 9, 2025
Photophoretic Flyers: Novel Propulsion for Near-Space Sensing
Dr. Benjamin Schafer
(Harvard University)
While photophoresis, or “light-driven motion,” has long explained how aerosol layers remain aloft in the middle atmosphere, practical applications have only recently been gaining attention. Advances in nanofabrication now allow us to build lightweight structures that...
October 16, 2025
A new sectional cloud model for the NSF Community Earth System Model
Brian Toon, Cheng-Cheng Liu, Yunqian Zhu
(LASP)
We have developed a new cloud model, CARMA Cloud, for the NCAR Community Earth System Model that is designed to simplify the cloud model and improve its representation of cloud aerosol interactions. Rapid, unexpected, global warming...
September 25, 2025
Magnetic Evolution and the Fate of Stellar Dynamos
Travis Metcalfe
(Center for Solar-Stellar Connections)
Abstract: Weakened magnetic braking (WMB) was originally proposed in 2016 to explain anomalously rapid rotation in old field stars observed by the Kepler mission. The proximate cause was suggested to be a transition in magnetic morphology...
September 11, 2025
Particle acceleration in asymmetric magnetic reconnection
Nehpreet Walia
(Los Alamos National Laboratory)
Magnetic reconnection in asymmetric environments such as the solar corona and Earth’s magnetosphere exhibits distinct particle acceleration behavior compared to symmetric cases, due to differences in plasma density and magnetic field across the current sheet. Using...
July 24, 2025
JWST images of dynamic infrared aurora and a new look at auroral precipitation
Jonathan Nichols
(University of Leicester, UK)
Planetary magnetospheres provide natural laboratories for the study of space plasmas, and Jupiter’s magnetosphere in particular acts as a bridge between those phenomena we can study in detail at Earth, and those beyond the solar system...
June 26, 2025
Zooming into fine plasma structures in the Sun’s corona with adaptive optics
Dirk Schmidt
(NSO)
Observing cool, visible-light plasma in the Sun’s corona beyond the solar limb at 63 km (90 mas) resolution is now possible with the new coronal adaptive optics system Cona at the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope. Cona...
June 12, 2025
On the present and future of Earth Energy Balance measurements
Maria Hakuba
(JPL)
The upcoming Libera mission, NASA’s first Earth Venture Continuity selection, will provide seamless continuity to current broadband radiance measurements obtained by the Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project since March 2000. Leveraging advanced detector...
June 5, 2025
Mars and Venus: Vantage Points for Study of Atmospheric Escape and Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere Coupling
Mike Chaffin
(LASP, CU)
Venus, Earth, and Mars are “natural experiments” in terrestrial planet atmospheric evolution, each providing a unique window into how a planet’s volatile inventory is shaped by planetary and stellar properties. These objects host the only terrestrial...
May 8, 2025
The Great Red Spot (A Planetary Vortex)
Mike Wong
(SSL, UC Berkeley )
Jupiter’s Great Red Spot (GRS) has been observed for almost 200 years. This remarkably long-lived atmospheric feature changes over time on timescales of decades (gradual shrinking) to months (oscillations). Some variability, like the extension of red...
April 24, 2025
Storm Chasing in the Tropics and Subtropics with the NASA INCUS Mission
Susan C. van den Heever
(Colorado State University)
Convective Mass Flux (CMF) – the vertical transport of air and water by deep convective storms – drives the large-scale circulation, upper tropospheric moistening, high cloud-raditiave feedbacks, surface precipitation rates, and extreme weather. Despite the fundamental...
April 17, 2025
The Forward Contamination of Mars: Don’t Worry, Be Happy
Scot Rafkin
(SwRI, Boulder)
The possibility of indigenous life on Mars, either past or present, is a persistent theme that permeates literature, popular culture, and, of course, the exploration of Mars itself. Whether seeking organics, biomarkers, or organisms, scientific integrity...
April 10, 2025
The thermosphere and the dynamic processes driving the thermospheric responses to major geomagnetic storms
Wenbin Wang
(NCAR/HAO)
The thermosphere is an atmospheric region from ~100 km to ~1000 km produced by the atmospheric absorption of solar UV and EUV radiation. It is the region where atmospheric species is not well mixed but diffuses...
April 3, 2025
Exploring the activity across cool stars using sub-terahertz imaging tomography
Atul Mohan
(GSFC)
Stellar activity drives space weather, influencing planetary atmospheres and habitability. The Sun is the only known star to host a biosphere, though in general cool main-sequence stars (F – M type) host the majority of Earth-like...
March 20, 2025
Atmospheric escape from Mars and Venus: recent advancements and new mysteries
Eryn Cangi
(LASP, CU)
Though dry and inhospitable to life as we know it today, Mars once hosted substantial surface liquid water, and Venus may have as well. Over time, much of the water from both planets has effectively been...
March 13, 2025
Perspectives on Climate and Science Policy from DC and Beyond: Lessons Learned at the AMS Climate Policy Colloquium
Matt Watwood
(LASP)
“Working in policy” is a phrase we hear tossed around, but what does that really entail? What are the professional roles that exist in science policy? What is it like working on climate policy in the...