1:00pm EST., Friday February 18th

Presenting Live via Zoom

Hot, Cold, and In Between: Robotic Ramblings Across the Solar System

As a planetary geologist my career has been spent exploring the Solar System, trying to understand how planets, moons, and asteroids got to be the way they are. In this talk I discuss my work on missions to Mercury, Eros, and Europa, giving background on what it’s like to be part of a team exploring with robotic spacecraft, and highlighting some of the amazing scientific discoveries we made.

Bio: Dr. Louise Prockter is the Space Science & Instrumentation Branch Head and Chief Scientist of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory’s Space Exploration Sector. She has been involved in robotic planetary missions throughout her career, serving as an Imaging Team associate on the Galileo and Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) missions; a Deputy Project Scientist and Co-Investigator on the MESSENGER mission to Mercury; a Deputy Project Scientist for the Europa Clipper flagship mission, and currently a Co-Investigator on that mission’s camera team. Louise was recently the Principal Investigator of the Trident Discovery mission concept, which would send a spacecraft to Neptune’s moon Triton. Louise earned her Ph.D. in Planetary Geology from Brown University; her scientific research focuses on the geomorphology and structural geology of icy satellites and other solar system bodies. She has participated in numerous National Academy of Sciences and NASA advisory panels, and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America.