I would be remiss if I didn't mention our visitors from Brown University this summer. Allie and Jessy are undergraduates in the geosciences department who wanted to gain some lab experience. They worked on measuring wave speeds in partially molten ice samples. This involved lots of time in the cold room...
Working with Mike, they put together this special baby cryostat to maintain temperature around samples. Inside the cooled cylinder sat a sample of ice + ammonia and on either side of the sample were ultrasonic transducers.
They were very careful, took excellent notes, and calculated error bars. At the end of the summer they presented their (tiny) poster at an informal poster session at Lamont.
And they did such a nice job, that we will publishing their results in an upcoming special edition of Geosciences about Interiors of Icy Ocean Worlds. Stay tuned for that and for great things to come from these young researchers!
