Parker Solar Probe Touches the Sun

Friday, November 15 at 7pm

CU Boulder students are admitted FREE with valid Buff OneCard. 

On December 24, 2024, the NASA Parker Solar Probe will accomplish its closest approach of the Sun for this mission to help us understand the solar corona and solar wind. Join us for a celebration of Parker Solar Probe, along with a sister mission named PUNCH that will launch in early 2025.  During this event, we will premiere Humanity Touches the Sun, our newest episode of our full dome series Science through Shadows.  We will also be joined by Adrian Hill, a member of the Principal Professional Staff in the Embedded Applications Group at The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, who will share even more details about the exciting solar physics that Parker Solar Probe and PUNCH will be contributing in the coming years. Plus, Manolis K. Georgoulis, a Senior Professional Staff Physicist Space Exploration Sector with the SRP Group at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, who will share some of the science highlights.

Doors open at 6pm with a host of interactive educational activities related to the Sun available in the Fiske gallery both before and after the premiere and public talk from 7-8pm. 

Adrian Hill is a member of the Principal Professional Staff in the Embedded Applications Group at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (joined 2000). He is the Autonomy System Lead for Parker Solar Probe mission responsible for the system that autonomously detects and corrects on-board faults. He is also currently the Autonomy System Lead for NASA Dragonfly (Mission to Titan, largest moon of Saturn). He previously led the development of the Autonomous Fault Protection Systems for several NASA missions including Van Allen Storm Probes, and New Horizons (Mission to Pluto). He also was the Flight Software lead engineer for MESSENGER (Mission to Mercury) at APL and led Flight Software development for the Hubble Space Telescope replacement computer while working for the Raytheon Technical Services Company. He has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University at Buffalo (1986) and a M.S. in Computer Science from the Johns Hopkins University (2003).

Manolis K. Georgoulis is a Senior Professional Staff Physicist Space Exploration Sector with the SRP Group at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.