Morehead Planetarium and Science Center

Carolina Skies
2022-12-09 15:00 - 16:00, 2022-12-04 16:30 - 17:30, 2022-12-03 16:30 - 17:30, 2022-11-27 16:30 - 17:30, 2022-11-26 16:30 - 17:30, 2022-11-20 16:30 - 17:30, 2022-11-19 16:30 - 17:30 (America/New_York) | GSK Fulldome Theater

Earth, Moon and Sun
2022-12-09 13:30 - 14:30, 2022-11-19 10:30 - 11:30 | GSK Fulldome Theater

UNC Research Spotlight with Tamlin Pavelsky: The NASA SWOT Mission
2022-12-05 10:00 - 11:00 | Morehead Planetarium and Science Center Science Stage, 250 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514, United States
NASA’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography Satellite: A New Eye in the Sky for Earth’s Water

Water is perhaps the single most important resource for humans and naturals systems. In the form of floods, it also drives the most destructive category of natural disasters worldwide. Despite its clear importance, there is a huge amount we do not know about where our water is and how it is changing. In this public talk, Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky will tell us about how NASA and collaborators around the world have developed a new satellite, the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, that will give us an unprecedented global picture of the world’s river flow, lake water storage, and ocean circulation. SWOT is scheduled to launch this December, representing the culmination of more than 15 years of work by scientists and engineers. We will explore both the cutting-edge science that SWOT will accomplish and the long process that led to the development of this $1B satellite.

Dr. Tamlin Pavelsky is a professor of global hydrology in the Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned his PhD in geography from UCLA in 2008. His dissertation focused on using remote sensing, field measurements, and large datasets to understand how the water cycle in northern environments varies in space and time. In 2009, Dr. Pavelsky was hired as an assistant professor at UNC. His teaching has focused on remote sensing, water resources, and hydrology, while his research has focused on understanding the global distribution of water in rivers, lakes, and mountain snowpack using satellite imagery, field measurements, and regional climate models. Since 2013, Dr. Pavelsky has served as the hydrology science lead for the NASA Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission. For his work leading the surface water community towards solutions for measuring river flow from space, Dr. Pavelsky was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest award given by the U.S. government to early career researchers. He grew up in central Alaska in cabins without electricity or running water.

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The Longest Night: A Winter’s Tale
2022-12-04 15:00 - 16:00, 2022-12-03 15:00 - 16:00, 2022-11-27 15:00 - 16:00, 2022-11-26 15:00 - 16:00 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Solar System Odyssey
2022-12-04 13:30 - 14:30, 2022-11-27 13:30 - 14:30 | GSK Fulldome Theater

We Are Stars
2022-12-03 13:30 - 14:30, 2022-11-26 13:30 - 14:30 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Take Flight
2022-12-03 12:00 - 13:00 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Magic Tree House Space Mission
2022-12-03 10:30 - 11:30, 2022-11-26 10:30 - 11:30 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Galileo: The Power of the Telescope
2022-11-26 12:00 - 13:00 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Storytelling Under The Stars
2022-11-20 18:00 - 19:00

Dynamic Earth
2022-11-20 15:00 - 16:00 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Astronaut
2022-11-20 13:30 - 14:30 | GSK Fulldome Theater

From Earth to the Universe
2022-11-19 15:00 - 16:00 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Tsunamis
2022-11-19 13:30 - 14:30 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Cosmic Colors
2022-11-19 12:00 - 13:00 | GSK Fulldome Theater

Astronomy Merit Badge Workshop – Boy Scouts
2022-11-18 18:00 - 20:30 | Morehead Planetarium

Teen Science Cafe | Back to the Geosphere: Impacts of CO2 Sequestration Underground
2022-11-18 17:30 - 19:00 | Morehead Planetarium and Science Center Science Stage, 250 E Franklin St, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 27514, United States
Geological carbon sequestration involves capturing atmospheric CO2, condensing it into liquid form, and pumping it into deep underground aquifers. Scientists have been exploring the environmental impacts of carbon sequestration, including changes to groundwater geochemistry, subsurface microbial community composition, and the potential for fracturing and escape of CO2 back into the atmosphere. I’ll give an overview of these impacts and share data illustrating the impact of high CO2 concentrations on subsurface microbial communities.

About our speaker: Megan Plenge is a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences at UNC-Chapel Hill. Her dissertation research focused on microbial controls on water chemistry. She is currently involved with the National Association of Geoscience Teacher (NAGT) as the North Carolina representative to the South East section, and as a program chair for their national conference, the Earth Educator Rendezvous.
