MPAS Meeting September 2023

Society monthly meeting recorded on 20230920 at The Briars Mount Martha Observatory.

Meeting introduction was by the President, Dr. Peter Skilton.

Vice President, Chris Kostokanellis, then presented the AstroMoPho Astronomy Photographic challenge for the month, followed by Committee member, Dr. Guido Tack, with the Sky for the Month.

This was followed by Secretary, Nerida Langcake, and past-President, David Rolfe, sharing about the collaborative field trip with the ASV to Mount Buller for a public stargazing night prototype there in the snow.

A new segment, Cosmic Corner, was then presented by Eden White on the topic of whether a Muon Collider should be built.

The main video was then shown on the topic of “Advanced Propulsion for JPL Deep Space Missions”, presented by Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Dr. Dan Goebel. This public lecture from 19-March-2009 is courtesy of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory – California Institute of Technology as part of their Von Karman lecture series.

Peter Skilton then presented the following science videos:

“How NASA Names Things On Mars”, presented by Geologist, Tina Seeger, NASA JPL-Caltech.

“Introducing Europa Clipper”, courtesy of NASA JPL-Caltech.

“Testing Out The New Snake Robot”, courtesy of NASA JPL-Caltech.

A musical closure followed, showing the gravity map of the Earth as measured by the GOCE satellite. This video is courtesy of the European Space Agency. Its audio is Dark Ages by MaxKoMusic from the No Copyright Music channel.