Ahmedabad, 19 July 2012

Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad will host a public lecture by Prof. Wing-Huen IP, Vice Chancellor, University System of Tiwan & Professor of Astronomy and Space Science, National Central University, Taiwan on “The Mysteries of the Saturn’s Rings.”

The event has been organized on Monday, July, 23, 2012, at 18:00 hrs at K.R. Ramanathan Auditorium in PRL campus, and it is open for all.

Abstract

The majestic ring system of Saturn represents one of the most spectacular sights of our solar system. It is very massive but thin. It is very broad but divided into myriads of narrow ringlets and moonlets. From ground and space observations we know that the rings are composed mostly of water ice but we don’t know exactly what the origin is. Above all, we don’t even know how old the ring system is. It could be as old as the solar system or much younger as suggested by some theories. In this public lecture a summary of the most recent development in the study of the Saturnian ring system will be presented with a view to address some of these questions.

Speaker

Prof. Wing-Huen Ip did his college education in the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He then went to University of California at San Diego (UCSD), for his PhD study in 1974. After three postdoctoral fellowships at UCSD, he went to Germany in 1978 to work at the Max-Planck-Institute for Aeronomy (now MPI for Solar System Research). After 20 years in Europe, he was appointed professor of astronomy and space science at the Institute of Astronomy and Space Science, National Central University (NCU) in Taiwan and served for six years (1998-2004) as dean of science and three years as vice-president (2006-2008). His main research fields are solar system plasma physics, planetary dynamics and planetary exospheres. He has participated in several major planetary missions including Giotto to comet Halley, Galileo to Jupiter, Cassini to Saturn and Titan, Mars Express and Rosetta. Prof. Ip was awarded NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal (2009), the Axford Medal by the Asia-Oceania Geosciences Society in 2011 and team achievement award to Cassini-Huygens project, International Academy of Astronautics (2006). He is a Fellow of the Physical Society of Republic of China (2002) and American Geophysical Union (2007).