Webinar 21 "Remote Sensing of Planets

Talk 1 Comparative Planetology PPT and VIDEO
Talk 2: Reflectance Spectroscopy PPT and VIDEO
Talk 3 Remote Sensing of Moon PPT and VIDEO
Talk 4 Advances in Planetary Sciences PPT  and VIDEO
Space Education and Research Foundation organized its 21st webinar. The topic of this webinar was  “Remote Sensing of Planets”. It had four talks by Dr. Megha U. Bhatt (Planetary Science Division, Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad, INDIA). These talks were made live one each on 8th, 9th, 10th and 13th January 2020.

About the speaker (Dr. Megha Bhatt)
Dr. Megha Bhatt is presently a faculty at Planetary Sciences Division of Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. She obtained her B. Sc. and M. Sc. degree from Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyala, Jabalpur. She completed her PhD in 2012 from Max Plank Institute for Solar System Research, Germany. She developed a new iron estimation algorithm using the multispectral dataset acquired by the InfraRed Spectrometer-2 (SIR-2) onboard Chandrayaan-1 mission as a part of her PhD work. Her research is focused on understanding the evolution of our solar system by studying the surface composition of airless bodies. In particular, her interest lies in mapping the major lunar elements and mineral exposures at the top-most layer of the Moon surface which provides insights on the mechanisms that governed the formation of the Moon and its subsequent internal differentiation.  Her major interest is in the spectrometric observations in the Visible-Near infrared (VIS-NIR) wavelength range.

Summary of the talks of the webinar on “Remote Sensing of Planets”
Talk 1:  Comparative Planetology
Understanding of Earth and its relationship to the other planets of solar system have been significantly improved during last fifty years. All planetary bodies of our solar system have been visited by spacecraft for a better understanding of each individual planet. This talk discusses the diverse worlds of our solar system with main emphasis on understanding crustal evolution in terrestrial planets. 

Talk 2: Reflectance spectroscopy
Reflectance spectroscopy is the study of light that has been reflected or emitted by materials. The reflectance spectrum carries the information about the mineralogical composition of the surface area. However, many other factors, like the grain size distribution, the viewing geometry, and space weathering affect the reflectance spectrum resulting increasing complexities in mineral detection. After describing laboratory based reflectance spectra, challenges and limitations of reflectance spectroscopy will be discussed in detail.   

Talk 3: Remote sensing of Moon
The integrated approach of exploring the Moon through analysis of the returned samples, Earth-based telescope and orbital data sets has provided in-depth knowledge not only about the Moon origin and evolution but also about the solar system evolution. This talk focuses on the important results obtained through previous and ongoing missions to the Moon.

Talk 4: Advances in Planetary Sciences
New planetary missions equipped with latest instrumentations pouring new information about individual bodies of our planetary system. Important results from recent missions; Messenger, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Orbiter Mission, Venus Express, Hayabusa, Rosetta, New Horizons, and New Horizons will be discussed. The discussion will be focused on the outstanding open questions in the field that can be further studied in detail using upcoming planetary missions.