As plumes of dust and ice erupt through Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, the second-largest planet in our cosmic neighborhood remains a deep-seeded mystery. While the US-European space mission Cassini may have ended in 2017, there are still many mysteries to solve and interesting finds to unlock. How did Saturn’s rings form? Does Enceladus harbor life? Dr. Larry Esposito will discuss the mysteries and data derived from Cassini and how it will shape our understanding of the ringed planet and its moons.

About the Speaker: Dr. Larry Esposito, LASP
Dr. Esposito is the principal investigator of the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) experiment on the Cassini space mission to Saturn. He was chair of the Voyager Rings Working Group. As a member of the Pioneer Saturn imaging team, he discovered Saturn’s F ring. He has been a participant in numerous US, Russian and European space missions and used the Hubble Space Telescope for its first observations of the planet Venus. He was awarded the Harold C. Urey Prize from the American Astronomical Society, The NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and the Richtmyer Lecture Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Physical Society.