Speakers

Steven Bellavia - Vera Rubin Telescope cameras

Title: The Vera Rubin Observatory

Abstract:

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which uses the largest and most sophisticated astronomy camera ever built, will conduct a 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) to answer some of the most pressing questions about the structure and evolution of the universe and the objects in it. This talk will discuss the design, construction and use of the world's largest digital camera, the heart of the Vera Rubin

Telescope (formerly called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope), and present the recently acquired engineering data during First Light/First Look.

The Rubin will rapidly scan the sky, using its 8.4 meter aperture optical telescope and 3.2 Gigapixel camera, designed to survey the visible sky every week down to a much fainter level than that reached by existing surveys. It will catalog 90 percent of the near-Earth objects larger than 300 meters and assess the threat they pose to life on Earth. It will find some 10,000 primitive objects in the Kuiper Belt, which contains a fossil record of the formation of the solar system. It will also contribute to the study of the structure of the universe by observing thousands of supernovae, both nearby and at large redshift. It will measure the distribution of dark matter through gravitational lensing. The images

from LSST will be used to examine billions of remote galaxies, providing multiple probes of the mysterious dark matter and dark energy.

Biography:

Steven Bellavia is an amateur astronomer and telescope maker. He is an aerospace engineer who worked for Grumman Aerospace with the Thermodynamics Group of the Space Division. He had a key role in developing a nuclear rocket engine, and performed the analysis, design and fabrication of the micro-gravity liquid droplet radiator that flew

on SpaceShuttle mission STS-029.

Steve has been at Brookhaven National Laboratory since 1992 and was the principal mechanical engineer for the camera on the Vera Rubin (formerly called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST). Prior to that, he was doing research and engineering for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory.

Steve has been recognized for the discovery of the Clair Obscure effect,

which is described in the December 2018 issue of Astronomy magazine.

Steve is an assistant adjunct professor of astronomy and physics at Suffolk County Community College and the Astronomy Education and Outreach Coordinator at the Custer Institute and Observatory in Southold, New York.

Mr. Lowell Grissom speaker information

Title: The Gus Grissom Story

Abstract: Mr. Lowell Grissom is the brother to NASA Astronaut Gus Grissom. The Gus Grissom Story discusses Gus’s life and experiences in the Space program. Gus was one of the original Mercury Seven selected by NASA for Project Mercury, and went on to be a Gemini and Apollo astronaut. He was the second American to fly in space in 1961, and the first American to fly in space twice. Gus served in World War II and

the Korean War. Trajectly he died as commander of Apollo 1 along with astronauts Ed White and Roger Chaffee on Jannuary 27, 1967, during a pre-launch test for the Apollo 1 mission at Cape Kennedy, Florida.

Biography: Mr. Lowell Grissom is the brother of Astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom. He graduated from Indiana University and was employed by McDonnell Douglas Automation Company as Director of Sales and Marketing. He was President of Professional Event Planners, and was elected as a member of the U.S. Registry’s Who’s Who of leading American executives. He is a past member of the Board of Directors for The Astronaut Memorial Foundation, The Apollo One Memorial

Foundation, The Challenger Centers and The Space Museum and Grissom Center. He currently serves as an Advisor to those organizations.

Lowell has spoken nationally about his famous brother and the space program. He has appeared in several space documentaries, including When We Left Earth-the NASA missions, Liberty Bell 7-the Lost Spacecraft, Boilermakers-Gus Grissom, and the just

released, Apollo One.

Dr. Erika Gibb speaker information

Title: Comets as Fossils: Why Comets are Important for Understanding our Origins

Abstract: Comets are small, icy remnants from the early solar system that have been held in the cold outer reaches of the solar system since their formation 4.6 billion years ago. In order to study their composition, we must rely on perturbations to send them into the inner solar system where the Sun's heat causes ices to sublimate into gases that we can then measure with telescopes on Earth. 

Over the past few decades, astronomers have compiled a database of compositions of molecules like water, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, methanol, formaldehyde, ammonia, ethane, and methane to name a few. Several of these molecules are precursors to the complex organic molecules used by life on Earth and astrobiologists are interested in how those molecules are distributed through space and delivered to planets. Very recently, we have also started finding comets that originated from outside our solar system, which allows us unprecedented insight into the chemistry that occurred around other young stars. I will discuss how we measure the composition of comets, what they tell us about the origins of the solar system, and what we still have left to learn from these enigmatic objects.

Biography: Erika's interest in astronomy began at age 10 with a school project about the life cycle of stars. She pursued this interest professionally by earning a B.S. in Physics and Astronomy at Northern Arizona University where she spent three years observing

solar type stars to characterize their magnetic activity cycles at Lowell Observatory. This was followed by a Ph. D. in Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2001 with a study of interstellar ices and postdoctoral research positions at NASA Goddard Space

Flight Center and the University of Notre Dame studying the composition of comets and protoplanetary disks. She is currently a Professor at the University of Missouri - St. Louis and interested in the evolution of prebiotically important molecules through the star formation process to their incorporation on terrestrial planets like Earth and  particularly how comets can be used as fossils of the early solar system.