Infinite Horizons: July. 10th "The Akatsuki mission: Challenging an outstanding question “Why Venus and Earth are so different?”"
Speaker: Prof. Takehiko Satoh (JAXA, Japan)
July. 10th, 2024
4pm, Beijing time
Watch it on Zoom
We have the pleasure to host the next Infinite Horizons' seminar on July 10th, 2024. Our host will be Prof. Takehiko Satoh from JAXA. Prof. Satoh will talk about "The Akatsuki mission: Challenging an outstanding question “Why Venus and Earth are so different?”".
Seminar’s abstract:
Venus is often called as the Earth’s twin sister as its diameter and mass are comparative to those of the Earth. Despite this similarity, however, the environment on Venus is quite different from what we have. The Venus atmosphere, consisting of ~96 % CO2, is so massive (~90 atm on its ground surface) that causes extremely strong greenhouse effect, resulting in ~730 K surface temperature. The planet is a slow rotator (~243 Earth Days for on revolution) but the atmosphere encircles the planet in ~4 Earth days, 60 times faster than the solid body’s rotation (both are in retrograde direction). This strange phenomenon was found in 1950’s and since then it has been the biggest mystery of Venus, called “super rotation”.
Japan’s Venus orbiter, named Akatsuki (meaning “dawn” in Japanese), challenges this question, ultimately “Why Venus and Earth are so different” by remote sensing of the atmosphere. It is the only spacecraft designed specifically for meteorological observations of a planet other than the Earth. Five onboard cameras, from ultraviolet to thermal infrared, plus one radio science equipment are optimized to sense different levels in the Venus atmosphere. The spacecraft was inserted in an elliptical equatorial-plane orbit around the planet (in retrograde direction) in December 2015, suited to study the atmospheric dynamics. Since then, Akatsuki achieved many discoveries and elucidation of mysteries. In this seminar, the overview of the mission and the most significant results of Akatsuki will be presented.
Zoom ID: 872 1492 5438
Livestream Link: http://live.bilibili.com/22671469
(Our Infinite Horizons seminars are usually host on the third Wednesday of the month)
About the speaker:
Prof. Takehiko Satoh is a planetary scientist who started his research career with studies of Jupiter’s clouds (doctoral thesis) and Jupiter’s infrared auroras (as a postdoctoral fellow). In 2001, he joined the Akatsuki mission which was just approved and the development was initiated. He was appointed to the Principal Investigator of the 2-micron camera (IR2) and later (in 2016) became the Project Scientist. Aside the researches, he served the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) as the President of Solar and Terrestrial Sciences (ST) Section (2012-2014), Secretary General (2018-2020), and President Elect (2023-2024). At the time of this seminar, his new position, the President of AOGS, is just beginning. With ISSI-BJ, he has been one of Discipline Scientists since 2021.
