UCLA EPSS

UCLA Meteorite Gallery Lecture Series Title: Clocks in Rocks - How to date a solar system Lecturer: Dr. Sara Russell; Natural History Museum, London When: 2:30 p.m. Pacific Time on January 17th, 2021.... Registration: https://ucla.zoom.us//register/tJEqduyupj0vGd3S0_52FsbHTbP Our solar system was born over four and a half billion years ago, from a cloud of dust and gas called the protoplanetary disk. Examples of the first solids to be formed - calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs) and chondrules -have survived in some meteorite samples to learn about these ancient times. In particular, we can determine how old these components are using lead isotopes, which places constraints on the formation time of our Sun and planets. Finer details can be provided by the isotope 26Al, which is a natural clock because it is radioactive and its abundance declines by half every 3/4 of a million years. By looking at how much of this isotope was present in each object when it formed we can therefore tell how old it is. However, this chronometer depends on knowing how much 26Al originally existed in the disk and how it was distributed. If we can work these details out, then we can use these data to determine the length of time it took to make CAIs and chondrules, and from this we can work out how long the dusty disk took to start to form planets. https://www.facebook.com/UCLAMeteorites/

Congratulations to UCLA Theater, Film and Television M.F.A. student Marian Whitaker, who won a Sloan Foundation Fellowship for her "Northern Lights" screenplay. Working closely with EPSS Professor Vassilis Angelopoulos to ensure technical accuracy, she was selected as one of six finalists in a competition promoting the interplay of cinema and science. She tells the story of a young Native American space researcher, yearning to escape her remote Alaska town and work for NASA, ...who finds herself in the forest at night on an unexpected adventure. We wish her the best and hope it will be turned into a film! https://newsroom.ucla.edu//ucla-tft-students-win-awards-fo FEATURE FILM SCRIPT Marian Whitaker, Northern Lights (action-adventure) Logline: An ambitious Alaska Native scientist spends her days as a glorified babysitter while studying the Northern Lights in a small Alaskan village. When disaster strikes, she must use her knowledge to save her fellow researcher and a stranded group of children. Field of science: Space weather Science mentors: Vassilis Angelopoulos, UCLA Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences; Emmanuel Masongsong, UCLA Experimental Space Physics Story inspiration: I have worked in Alaska (admittedly not as a scientist) and fell in love with the place and its culture. The children and wilderness skills in the script are very, very loosely based on my time there as a camp counselor taking care of kids. Why the focus on space weather? The Northern Lights are a scientific and spiritual anomaly that have enraptured people all over the world for thousands of years, so I decided to explore its mysteries and phenomena through space weather science. Most interesting fact learned in the writing process: The geomagnetic substorm from the Northern Lights, if strong enough, can affect electromagnetic fields on Earth and in space, causing power and radio issues. This is an important story to tell because: This story explores the meeting of science and spirituality, which I think is something we tend to separate in our lives. It asks the question: Can we find miraculous beauty in science?

Awesome SciAm overview on interstellar visitors, by our own Prof. David Jewitt: "Although astronomers have long believed that interstellar bodies pass through the solar system, actually finding one was a big surprise. Only the year before, an exhaustive analysis by Toni Engelhardt, then at the University of Hawaii, and his colleagues concluded that prospects for identifying such an interstellar interloper appear to be bleakthey were thought to be just too small and faint f...or us to have much hope of finding them. But as we discovered more about ‘Oumuamua, our surprise turned into utter bewilderment. Everything from its shape and size to its lack of cometlike properties ran counter to our expectations. If this was a typical visitor from the greater universe, we had a lot to learn." https://www.scientificamerican.com//everything-scientists/

Check out the UCLA Library "Science as Art" competition winners featuring two fluid dynamics models from the EPSS SpinLab, grad student Yufan Xu and new LMU Assistant Professor Emily Hawkins!! https://intersectionsinscience.wordpress.com/gallery/

Kudos to PhD student Raquel Nuno who shared her planetary science wisdom about our moon, on the StarTalk podcast with Neil deGrasse Tyson. Yay for primetime space geology, check it out!! https://www.startalkradio.net//cosmic-queries-lunar-geolo/

New research by Prof. Vassilis Angelopoulos and the THEMIS mission unravels the mystery of "auroral beads," using advanced simulation techniques to understand their origin in the Earth's magnetosphere.