Keck Observatory Donor Salon Talk: Seven Years of High-Cadence Solar System Observations using the ‘Twilight Zone’

Guest Speaker

Dr. Ned Molter 

Postdoctoral Scholar, Earth and Planetary Science Department

University of California at Berkeley 

During morning twilight, as the sun begins to rise, the visible-wavelength sky rapidly becomes too bright to observe.  The infrared sky remains dark for a few more hours, allowing us to do science until the sun is shining. 

As a Keck Visiting Scholar in the summer of 2017, Dr. Molter developed a program called the Twilight Zone, which maximizes the scientific return from those twilight hours by taking short-duration observations of solar system bodies. 

Dr. Molter shares an overview of the 100+ Twilight Zone observations taken in the last seven years, including what’s been discovered about Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, Saturn’s large organic-rich moon Titan, and the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune.

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The staff and management of the W. M. Keck Observatory wish to offer our deepest gratitude to our Astronomy Talk Series sponsors, Rob and Terry Ryan.

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