Carol Raymond - Ceres: An Ancient Ocean World from the Dawn of the Solar System
- Public Event
The main asteroid belt contains millions of objects but only a few date from the earliest stages of planet formation. The Dawn mission explored two such fossils: protoplanet Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, the latter of which the spacecraft began to explore in March 2015.
Since then, the mission has gathered evidence of geologic activity and clues confirming that Ceres had an ancient subsurface ocean, placing Ceres in the important class of objects with astrobiological potential. Raymond will discuss the mission's results in the context of conditions and physical processes at the dawn of our solar system.
Carol Raymond is the Deputy Principal Investigator for the Dawn mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which Caltech manages for NASA.
This is a free event; no tickets or reservations are required.
Reserved section tickets are available to members of the Friends of Beckman Auditorium and the Caltech Associates.
Presented by: Caltech Committee on Institute Programs
Carol Raymond
Credit: Courtesy of C. Raymond
Watch the November 9, 2016 lecture
