Journey through the Upper Atmosphere

Earth’s atmosphere is largely invisible to us, yet it is a defining trait of our planet and is essential to sustaining a stable environment on the surface. That life can thrive on earth is wholly dependent on the characteristics of the earth’s atmosphere. Join us on a journey of the mind through the five regions of the earth’s atmosphere. We will get a glimpse of odd and beautiful phenomena that occur above our heads as we discuss characteristics of these layers and how they protect us. We will visit the exciting vehicles that scientists have used to study near space over the past century and discuss why it is still quite mysterious to us despite its importance to the survival of a highly evolved and vigorous biome on the surface of the earth.

GUEST SPEAKER:
Tim Wheeler retired from Penn State University as an Associate Teaching Professor after twenty-four years in the Electrical Engineering Department. He taught core curriculum courses in the design process and oversaw the senior design program. He was the Principal Investigator for a series of student-built research rockets that launched in 1999, 2003, 2006, and 2019. He also built instrumentation for sounding rocket research of the mesosphere. He spent a sabbatical year at the Space Physics Department of the University of Oslo in 2006-07. Before coming to Penn State in 1995, he was a research engineer in the Space Plasma Physics Laboratory at Cornell University, where he built instruments for ionospheric research using sounding rockets. He supported over a dozen launch operations at rocket ranges from northern Norway to the Marshall Islands in the south Pacific. He has an MS in Curriculum & Education (Penn State, 2010), a BS in Electrical Engineering (Cornell, 1989) and an AB in Slavic Languages & Literature (Princeton, 1975). He climbed Denali in 1975 and from 1975 to 1985 he was a commercial fisherman in Homer, Alaska.