Following on from the success of hosting our monthly Cafe Scientifique online, we are delighted Professor John Zarnecki will be our speaker this month.
Log in details will be emailed through our mailing list. Should you wish to be added to our mailing list please email cafesci@didcotfirst.org
Tuesday 19th May 2020 | Professor John Zarnecki | The Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn & Titan – The Didcot Connection!
The joint NASA/ESA mission to the Saturnian system was arguably one of the most ambitious missions of scientific exploration to date. Launched in 1997 and arriving at Saturn in 2004, it delivered the Huygens Probe to the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, and spent 13 years studying the Saturnian system. Looking at the data and results from Titan, one of the most fascinating places in our Solar System, we will see how many people knew that the first part of the Huygens Probe to touch the surface of Titan was built in Didcot!
John Zarnecki studied Physics at the University of Cambridge, followed by a PhD at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London. His PhD focused on the x-ray emission from supernova remnants, and included the first ever high resolution detection of an x-ray spectral feature from a cosmic x-ray source. John’s experience of space research includes sounding rockets, Earth-orbiting and interplanetary missions at British Aerospace, The University of Kent and The Open University, including the Hubble Space Telescope, Giotto to Halley’s comet and Cassini/Huygens to Saturn & Titan.
He was President of the Royal Astronomical Society 2016-2018, received its Gold Medal in 2014 and has been a member of various national and international bodies, including Chair of the UK Space Agency Science Programme Advisory Committee. He holds awards from NASA and ESA and was an inaugural winner of the Arthur Clarke Award in 2005.
Retired from the Open University, he chaired the European Space Agency’s Space Science Advisory Committee2017-2019 and was a Director at the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland 2013-2016.