Uploaded May 2023 | Updated September 2026, 18 hours ago
Overview of the NASA Astrophysics Program
Dr. Mark Clampin (Director Astrophysics Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA)
In NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), the Astrophysics Division (APD) studies the universe. It has been an amazing year for NASA Astrophysics, with JWST approaching its first year anniversary of science operations. I will highlight some early results from JWST, and discuss the overall performance of the observatory as we look towards future opportunities. The highest priority for APD is currently the Roman Space Telescope, which will conduct wide-field near-IR surveys to study dark energy and dark matter. I will review recent progress in developing Roman and its instruments. APD operates a broad portfolio of missions, ranging from Hubble and Chandra, Explorer missions such as TESS, and small satellites such as Pandora. International collaborations represent a significant component of APD’s portfolio and include JWST, and Hubble. Missions in development include partnerships with the European Space Agency for a gravitational wave observatory, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), and Athena a X-Ray Observatory. APD’s current priorities are set by the 2020 National Academies Decadal Survey. I will review these recommendations, and discuss APD’s response to the recommendation for a future great observatory, the Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Dr. Mark Clampin is the Astrophysics Division Director in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Until August 2022, he was the Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (SED) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) leading the Astrophysics, Solar System, Heliophysics and Earth Science Divisions, together with the high performance computing office.
Linking intra-plate volcanism to underlying mantle dynamics
Prof Rhodri Davies (Australian National University)
Harold Jeffreys Lectureship
Most of Earth's volcanism occurs at tectonic plate boundaries, where plates move away from one another to create mid-ocean ridges, or where one plate slides beneath another to form a subduction zone. However, an important and widespread class of volcanism occurs within plates, or across plate boundaries. These so-called intra-plate volcanic provinces, which include the most rapid and voluminous volcanic episodes recorded in Earth’s history, are often associated with mantle plumes, hot buoyant columns that rise from Earth’s core-mantle-boundary to its surface.
It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that several of these provinces cannot be explained by the mantle plume hypothesis and are likely driven by alternative mechanisms that involve the interplay between mantle flow and the base of Earth’s rigid outermost shell - the lithosphere. The applicability and relative importance of these mechanisms, however, remains unclear, and likely varies from one geological setting to the next. In this talk, I will showcase recent efforts to reveal the dynamical mechanisms underpinning Earth’s intra-plate volcanic provinces, through observational geodynamics, where observational constraints from across the geosciences are fused and integrated with fundamental physical laws encoded in multi-resolution geodynamical models. Particular attention will be paid to those provinces that lie within, or adjacent to, Earth’s continents.
Professor Rhodri Davies is a computational and observational geodynamicist based at the Australian National University’s (ANU) Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES).
To see complete biographies of our speakers, please go to: ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings/ras-meetings/ras-ordinary-meeting-april-2023
Overview of the NASA Astrophysics Program
Dr. Mark Clampin (Director Astrophysics Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA)
In NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), the Astrophysics Division (APD) studies the universe. It has been an amazing year for NASA Astrophysics, with JWST approaching its first year anniversary of science operations. I will highlight some early results from JWST, and discuss the overall performance of the observatory as we look towards future opportunities. The highest priority for APD is currently the Roman Space Telescope, which will conduct wide-field near-IR surveys to study dark energy and dark matter. I will review recent progress in developing Roman and its instruments. APD operates a broad portfolio of missions, ranging from Hubble and Chandra, Explorer missions such as TESS, and small satellites such as Pandora. International collaborations represent a significant component of APD’s portfolio and include JWST, and Hubble. Missions in development include partnerships with the European Space Agency for a gravitational wave observatory, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), and Athena a X-Ray Observatory. APD’s current priorities are set by the 2020 National Academies Decadal Survey. I will review these recommendations, and discuss APD’s response to the recommendation for a future great observatory, the Habitable Worlds Observatory.
Dr. Mark Clampin is the Astrophysics Division Director in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. Until August 2022, he was the Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (SED) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) leading the Astrophysics, Solar System, Heliophysics and Earth Science Divisions, together with the high performance computing office.
Linking intra-plate volcanism to underlying mantle dynamics
Prof Rhodri Davies (Australian National University)
Harold Jeffreys Lectureship
Most of Earth's volcanism occurs at tectonic plate boundaries, where plates move away from one another to create mid-ocean ridges, or where one plate slides beneath another to form a subduction zone. However, an important and widespread class of volcanism occurs within plates, or across plate boundaries. These so-called intra-plate volcanic provinces, which include the most rapid and voluminous volcanic episodes recorded in Earth’s history, are often associated with mantle plumes, hot buoyant columns that rise from Earth’s core-mantle-boundary to its surface.
It is becoming increasingly evident, however, that several of these provinces cannot be explained by the mantle plume hypothesis and are likely driven by alternative mechanisms that involve the interplay between mantle flow and the base of Earth’s rigid outermost shell - the lithosphere. The applicability and relative importance of these mechanisms, however, remains unclear, and likely varies from one geological setting to the next. In this talk, I will showcase recent efforts to reveal the dynamical mechanisms underpinning Earth’s intra-plate volcanic provinces, through observational geodynamics, where observational constraints from across the geosciences are fused and integrated with fundamental physical laws encoded in multi-resolution geodynamical models. Particular attention will be paid to those provinces that lie within, or adjacent to, Earth’s continents.
Professor Rhodri Davies is a computational and observational geodynamicist based at the Australian National University’s (ANU) Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES).
To see complete biographies of our speakers, please go to: ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings/ras-meetings/ras-ordinary-meeting-april-2023
