Θεματική ομιλία με τίτλο:
"Lucy is the sky with Trojan asteroids"
Ομιλητής: ο διακεκριμένος αστροφυσικός Dr. Simone Marchi, ερευνητής στο Solar System Science and Exploration Division of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, USA.
Το Σάββατο 31 Μαΐου 2025, ώρα 21:00
στο Κέντρο Επισκεπτών Θησείου του Εθνικού Αστεροσκοπείου Αθηνών, Λόφος Νυμφών, Θησείο.
Τον ομιλητή θα προλογίσει ο εξαιρετικός συνάδελφός του Δρ. Κλεομένης Τσιγάνης, καθηγητής του Τομέα Αστροφυσικής, Αστρονομίας και Μηχανικής του Τμήματος Φυσικής του Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης.
Η ομιλία θα πραγματοποιηθεί στην αγγλική γλώσσα.
Η είσοδος είναι ελεύθερη για το κοινό.
Θα τηρηθεί σειρά προτεραιότητας, έως την κάλυψη των διαθέσιμων θέσεων.
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Περίληψη της ομιλίας:
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Spacecraft have roamed far and wide across the Solar System, passing by numerous primitive small bodies from the orbit of the Earth to beyond the orbit of Pluto. There are two large populations of asteroids—estimated to contain more than a million objects—that have yet to be explored at close range, the so-called Trojan asteroids. These mysterious asteroids lead and trail Jupiter by 60° along its orbit around the Sun where they persist since the beginning of the Solar System.
The NASA Lucy mission will accomplish the first reconnaissance of these distant bodies. The Lucy mission began its 12-year journey on October 16, 2021, leaving Earth from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas V 401 rocket. The mission’s hidden gem is its trajectory. Lucy’s path in the sky has been carefully designed to allow navigation through both Trojan populations (5 years apart!), and target some of the most scientifically intriguing Trojan asteroids: Eurybates, Polymele, Leucus, Orus, Patroclus, Menoetius. The first Trojan asteroid the Lucy spacecraft will encounter is Eurybates (August 2027), the largest remnant of a parent body that was disrupted by a violent collision, and the final flyby will be of a near equal-size binary pair, Patroclus and Menoetius, among the largest Trojan asteroids (March 2033).
On its way to the Trojan asteroids, Lucy flew by two small asteroids between Mars and Jupiter’s orbits revealing exciting details that will be presented in this talk about what may await us when we finally arrive to the Trojan asteroids.
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Σύντομο βιογραφικό του ομιλητή:
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Simone Marchi is an astrophysicist and Institute Scientist in the Solar System Science and Exploration Division of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Marchi's main research interests are the formation and evolution of the Solar System, and in particular, asteroids and terrestrial planets. Marchi is author (or co-author) of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications. Marchi has published a popular science book, Colliding Worlds, for the Oxford University Press (2021), and has been an Editor of the academic book Vesta and Ceres, for the Cambridge University Press (2022).
Marchi has won the international Farinella Prize Prize and the NASA Susan Mahan Niebur Early Career Award. Asteroid 72543 Simonemarchi named after Simone Marchi by the International Astronomical Union.
Marchi is involved in several space missions, including: Deputy Principal Investigator for NASA Lucy mission to visit the Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids; Co-Investigator of NASA Psyche mission to rendezvous with asteroid Psyche; Co-Investigator of the stereo camera SIMBIOSYS for ESA BepiColombo mission to Mercury; Co-Investigator of the camera JANUS for ESA JUICE mission to the Jupiter’s Galilean Moons; Co-Investigator of NASA Dawn that visited asteroids Vesta and Ceres; and Associate Scientist of the camera OSIRIS on board ESA Rosetta that explored comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Thanks to these activities, Marchi has received several NASA and ESA mission group achievement awards.
https://www.boulder.swri.edu/~marchi/
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