My first conference

As we approach conference season, our new recruits at PVL are getting their first taste of what it is like to present your work in front of the scientific community and to interact with labs working on disparate problems. Look for more posts in this vein and details about what we'll be discussing in our nine abstracts at the upcoming 2017 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas in March. The image above is taken from the poster session at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting, the largest conference on the Planetary Calendar.

By T. Giang Nguyen

As my third term rolls around as a graduate student, I’ve grown rather cozy of the little office where I generally spend most of my time. Aside from a summer short-course at Western University, I have not strayed far from York University since the fall term started. You can get pretty comfortable relying on daily routines but once in a while, it’s healthy to mix it up a bit. There had been discussions between the different events that we can attend and the group is heading to Houston, Texas for the 48^th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in late March. Excitement and anxiety kicks in as this would be the first time that I would participate in a conference and it’s outside of Canada. Although this winter has not been as unforgiving as previous winters, I do enjoy the thought of escaping the ice and snow.

It is all about safety!

Dr. Abdelkrim Toumi has been reviewing our safety procedures in the lab as we work our planetary simulation chamber up for its first research use. This is something we take very seriously at PVL.

by: Dr. Abdelkrim Toumi

If you are working as a chemist, there are many potential dangers you can face. It is of your responsibility to be aware of the procedures that must be followed for working in safety. Different kinds of dangers exist in a laboratory such as chemical, physical, biological or radiological and each of them has its own safety procedures. During my research as a postdoctoral fellow here in the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory, we are working on a camera that would be able to detect water in some specific polar regions on the Moon. I have to deal with special environment, instruments and chemicals so I have to be very careful when I want to perform an experiment. Different safety procedures must be followed but it is not as easy as it sounds. In this post, you will find a non-exhaustive list of procedures that must be taken during my work.

Surfing the Rings: Using Small Spacecraft to Explore Saturn’s Rings

 

MIT's ion micro-thruster, (developed by the Space Propulsion Laboratory - Photo: M. Scott Brauer) is a technological development which has contributed to MSc student Eric Shear's conception of what a small satellite fleet might accomplish at Saturn. Find out more, below!

By Eric Shear

 

Over the last several months, I have been working on a CubeSat mission proposal to Saturn’s rings as part of my master’s thesis, now called “Saturn Ice Ring Exploration Network” or SIREN for short. I wrote about the science rationale in my blog post “The Ring Paradox.” The first draft should be completed by the end of this month, and I’d like to use this blog to reflect on my experience developing SIREN.

The Importance of Public Outreach for the Younger Generation

  A photo of my siblings and I during the holidays where I gave a talk at their school. This was during my sister’s grade 6 class where they are learning about space. Hailey is 10 here while Arden is 8.

 By Charissa Campbell

One good thing about being a scientist is not only trying to learn about how the world works but being a good role model for the younger generation to encourage them to study science as well. This can be done by taking part in public outreach or, as in my case, encouraging your younger siblings to always be interested in science. I could do both of those things due to the significant gap in the age between my siblings and I. I took part in a public outreach program with a local science center teaching kids about astronomy in an observatory. Nothing was more satisfying than seeing little kids say “wow” or just to see their eyes bright up when I would show them Saturn or even just the moon.