Thesis Defense by Matt Nowinski on November 28th
Space Studies master’s student, Matt Nowinski, will defend his M.S. thesis on Tuesday, November 28th. All Space Studies students and faculty are encouraged to attend.
When: Tuesday, November 28th at 1:00 p.m. (Central)
Where: Ryan Hall, Room 111
Title: “Lightcurve Study Of V-Type Asteroids”
About the topic: A massive impact event on (4) Vesta is believed to have created the Vesta family of asteroids. The rotational characteristics of the Vesta family provide important clues about this event, including its timing, the make-up of the resulting debris, the subsequent migration of members of the family into Earth-crossing orbits, and the associated deposition of Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenite meteorites on the Earth’s surface. This study conducted lightcurve measurements of ten V-type asteroids, drawn from an asteroid taxonomy based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Moving Object Catalogue. These lightcurve results were combined with those of other V-type asteroids available in literature. This investigation identified a set of Vesta family asteroids with relatively fast spin rates, nearly spherical shapes, and likely assembled as loose aggregates. These findings, combined with the non-Maxwellian shape of this population’s spin rate distribution, highlighted the importance of thermal Yarkovsky-YORP effects on the evolution of the Vesta family.
About the presenter: Matt Nowinski is a systems engineer at The Boeing Company in Fairfax, VA. Matt earned a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering (1991) and a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering (1993) from Virginia Tech, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering (2000) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2014, rather than buying a sports car or jumping out of airplanes, Matt turned his mid-life crisis into the pursuit of a M.S. in Space Studies at UND (and has thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it!). He is looking forward to his first visit to Grand Forks, and hopes to return with a UND car magnet and a completed degree.
******Those unable to attend in person may view the live webcast******
1) A live webcast which includes PowerPoint slides will be available here.
2) Via Adobe ConnectPro. Sign in as a guest, or use your Connect-Pro log-in.