Explore the Outer Solar System Oct. 12 at College of DuPage STEMinar Series
Learn about Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond the planet Neptune that contains remnants from the early days of the solar system, with College of DuPage Astronomy Professor Joe DalSanto from 7:30 to 9 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12, in the Student Resource Center, Room 2000, on the college's Glen Ellyn campus, 425 Fawell Blvd.
The event, part of the College's STEMinar Series, is free and open to the public.
DalSanto will guide attendees on a journey in space, examining the New Horizons mission, including its 2015 flyby of the small and distant planet Pluto, as well as its 2019 visit to the strange "Ultima Thule."
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe designed to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt.
Since its launch in 2006, the probe has flown by and gathered data and photographs from Jupiter and its moons Io, Europa and Ganymede; Pluto and its moons Charon, Hydra, Kerberos, Nix and Styx; and Ultima Thule.
Set to continue through 2021, the craft is currently more than 4.1 billion miles from earth and speeding further into the Kuiper Belt at nearly 33,000 miles per hour.
Known as a primordial contact binary, Ultima Thule (officially known as 2014 MU69) is approximately four billion miles from earth. It comprises two planetesimals that are joined along their major axes and resembles a flattened snowman.
The unusual body is believed to have formed from two chunks of rocky, icy material that gradually merged after orbiting a common center of mass. Ultima Thule, the farthest object ever explored and believed to be the oldest object ever encountered by a spacecraft, provides scientists a glimpse into the development and behavior of the early solar system.
Following a 15-year career in IT, DalSanto followed his passion for the stars which led to presentations for astronomy clubs and an invitation to perform public outreach and oversee the observatory at Waubonsee Community College. Subsequently, an increasing interest in teaching inspired DalSanto to earn a master's degree in astronomy. He has been a full-time faculty member at COD since 2012.
Learn more about this event at www.cod.edu.
This talk also is part of the Sage Series through the College's Continuing Education program.
The series is free, but registration is required at www.cod.edu. To register, call Continuing Education at (630) 942-2008.
The STEMinar Series at College of DuPage consists of free talks covering a variety of topics related to Science, Technology, Engineering and Math throughout the fall and spring semesters.
Upcoming STEMinars include "The View from Earth: 400 Years of Astronomical Discovery" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, by DalSanto and "Artificial Intelligence for Science" at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, by Argonne National Laboratory's Prasanna Balaprakash.
The goal of STEM at College of DuPage is to enhance the quality of STEM instructional and outreach programs and to help current and future students prepare for careers in STEM fields. COD offers a broad range of academic programs designed to provide students with the educational background and training needed to successfully pursue an advanced degree or career in STEM.