Date: July 16th, 2012
Title: A Unique Experiment for LRO’s Mini-RF
Podcaster: Nancy Atkinson and Dr. Ben Bussey
Organization: NASA Lunar Science Institute
Description: Is there is ice in permanently shadowed craters on the Moon? Scientists working with the mini rf instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have been attempting a very special and exciting experiment, called bistatic radar observations and with a little help from their friends at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, the team is obtaining data to test the hypothesis that ice maybe present inside craters near the Moon’s poles. Joining us today is Dr. Ben Bussey Principal Investigator for Mini-RF instrument.
Links: Music: “Amelia” by Ben Bedford from his “Land of the Shadows” CD. http://benbedford.com/
Bios:
The NLSI brings together leading lunar scientists from around the world to further NASA lunar science and exploration.
Ben J. Bussey is a planetary scientist. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary geology at University College London, England. In 2001, during his post-doctorate work at the University of Hawaii, he joined the ANSMET (Antarctic Search for METeorites) expedition to recover meteorites from the Antarctic glaciers. He worked at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston and the European Space Agency, before joining the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and becoming a senior staff scientist at that facility.
Bussey is specialized in the remote sensing of the surfaces of planets. He participated in the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker (NEAR) mission as a research scholar at Northwestern University, and co-authored an atlas of the Moon based on data and images from the Clementine mission. He has a particular interest in the lunar poles, using the Clementine images to locate crater cold traps for hydrogen deposits and mapping the so-called peaks of eternal light.
See his bio at: http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/articles/profile/dr-ben-bussey/
Nancy Atkinson is a science journalist and is the Senior Editor for Universe Today
Today’s Sponsor: This episode of 365 Days of Astronomy is sponsored by iTelescope.net – Expanding your horizons in astronomy today. The premier on-demand telescope network, at dark sky sites in Spain, New Mexico and Siding Spring, Australia.”