Lassonde Undergraduate Research Award

Romina is one of three undergraduates working in the lab this summer. She, like Alex holds a Lassonde Undergraduate Research Award (LURA) while Michael holds an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA). These funding sources are key for getting top undergraduates involved in research early in their careers, giving them a taste for what a graduate degree or a life in research might be like.

by Romina Bahrami

This summer I had the great opportunity to participate in research in the Planetary Volatiles Lab as an undergraduate student who just finished their first year of university. Doing research as an undergraduate student seems stupid and meaningless to many people and I can’t deny the lack of knowledge and experience as an undergraduate comparing to a graduate student; but I believe letting us work besides graduate students can act as an accelerator for us. Most people, including myself, who enter the science majors especially physics and astrophysics, have the intention to become a researcher one day while they know nothing about a researcher’s job or lifestyle. 

Rover Exploration Challenge at the Ontario Science Centre (July 28th and 29th 2018)

PVL is running a rover mission control simulation at the Ontario Science Center on July 28th and 29th. Everyone is invited to come, visit and participate as we explore a mystery planet! For more information, over to Dr. Christina Smith.
(Image taken from: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/mars-curiosity/en/ )

by Dr. Christina L. Smith

You may (or may not) have noticed that Mars is looking a little brighter than usual at the moment. And from July 27^th-30^th it will actually be the brightest it has been since 2003! Mars is currently approaching opposition where the Sun, the Earth, and Mars are all in alignment. This happens roughly every 26 months and this one will happen on July 27^th. Closely related to this is the closest approach of Mars to Earth – this time it happens four days later on July 31^st. To celebrate Mars’ proximity and opposition, a number of events are happening around Toronto (and beyond) this week to let you observe and learn about Mars and just generally bask in the glory of The Red Planet’s awesomeness.

As part of this, some members of the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory are putting on an event at the Ontario Science Centre this coming weekend (July 28^th and 29^th) called the Rover Exploration Challenge. This is a drop in event where participants can experience what it’s like to be part of a team trying to explore another planet. They’ll be divided up into three science groups, each of whom have a different set of science goals to achieve in a limited amount of Rover Science Time. Every Rover Day, lasting about half an hour, a different team will come in and will be given a Mission Briefing to show them what kind of science they can do. Afterwards, Science Leads will take them through everything we know so far relating to their science goals – what we know, what we don’t know, what they can do to help complete the mission.

The first decision the Mission Team will need to make is whether they want the rover to drive. Each drive allows the rover to explore a new area, but the rover can’t go back to explore a place it’s already been so they have to make sure they have done everything they might want to do before moving on!  Different Science Groups have different goals, which may influence whether or not they want to drive and in this team, democracy rules so if the majority says a drive is “Go!” then that’s what will happen. So if one group needs to stay put or needs to drive, they need to persuade the other science teams that that’s what they should vote for.

After the drive decision, the different Science Groups need to decide what they want to study and when during the Rover Day. There’s atmospheric measurements, water tests, ground tests, and imaging available to take with the rover, and different sites could be very different from one another so it’s important to test these at different locations along the Rover’s Exploration Path. After they’ve decided what they want the rover to do and put it into the Rover Plan, it’s time to check the plan, upload it to the rover, and wait for the results to come back. But there’s always an element of risk when using the rover: observations could fail, drives could fault, or the whole rover could shut down...

4 Things getting a Master’s Taught Me

PVL's newest minted Master, Tue Giang Nguyen, reflects on his time at PVL as he stands on the cusp of becoming a PhD Candidate in the group.

by Tue Giang Nguyen

As the summer passes by, I'm wrapping up the things I’ve done for my Master’s degree and hope to get a good start for my PhD. Although it has only been a short two years that I’ve spent in grad school, those years have been quite eventful. Now that I’m near the end of the tunnel, I can look back at some of the things I’ve learned hoping to impart wisdom onto the next generation of Master’s students, one blog post at a time. Below I will bestow to you a list of things I think that would help when looking to start a research-based Master’s degree (in no particular order).

Video Game provides opportunity for research on impactors

In his inaugural post, PVL Summer Undergraduate Michael Tabascio takes a look at a most unusual crater that appears in popular culture, on the map of the game "fortnite" as pictured above. As frequent readers of this space will appreciate, I think it's absolutely critical to bring the public along for the ride that is planetary exploration. As such, depictions of planetary processes like these offer a unique opportunity to connect our work with that public experience and to deepen the appreciation of both perspectives.

By Michael Tabascio

Fortnite is a hunger games style third person shooter has taken the world by storm, with the objective to be the last one alive by eliminating your opponents. It can be said with great assurance that Fortnite is the biggest game of the year, with the map evolving every couple months. Perhaps the most notable change came in May, when the map was struck by a meteor leaving a gigantic crater in the middle of the map. Using the dimensions of the crater, the direction and angle of the meteor, as well as the material of both the meteor and the ground beneath it, we can estimate what the size of the meteor was that hit the map.

Attending the 2018 CASI Conference

As you can see from the image above, Quebec City is truly a whimsical place. PhD student Jake reflects on his experiences in this eastern town while attending the CASI Conference in May.

By Jake Kloos

From May 15th to 17th of this year, I had the opportunity to attend the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute (CASI) conference held in Quebec City, Quebec. A few other members of our lab also attended (Paul Godin, Alex Seguin, and John Moores), as did a number of other students in the Earth and Space Sciences department at York. As several attendees pointed out when I spoke with them, York University made up a sizeable contingent of the conference.

This was my second time attending CASI (the first time being in 2016), and my 7th conference overall during my tenure at York. Generally speaking, I enjoy attending conferences, and CASI this year was no exception. I enjoy travelling to new places and hearing about the latest research in aerospace and planetary science. And with each conference I attend, I feel a bit more comfortable standing in front of a crowd and presenting my own work and better able to scrutinize the work of others (as is healthy, and even necessary in science).