Recent Papers

  1. •What can we learn about meteor ablation from laser ablation?
    Hawkes, R. L.; Milley, E. P.; Ehrman, J. M.; Woods, R. M.; Hoyland, J. D.; Pettipas, C. L.; Tokaryk, D. W., Earth, Moon, and Planets, (2008) Vol. 102,, pp. 331-336 (link to article).
  2. •Meteor luminosity simulation through laser ablation
    Milley, E. P.; Hawkes, R. L.; Ehrman, J. M., Monthly Notice
    s Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, (2007) Vol. 382,, pp. L67-L71. (link to article)
 

SPARC (SPace and Astrophysics Research Consortium) is a research group centred at Mount Allison, but with collaborations at several other institutions.  Our main research areas are solar system astrophysics, meteor ablation, meteoroid hazards to space operations, detection systems for faint transient optical events, laser ablation, lunar impacts, and interactions between meteoroids and cometary nuclei.

SPARC

SPARC web materials are maintained by Robert Hawkes (rhawkes@mta.ca).  Last modified Apr. 30, 2008.

News

  1. •NSERC Discovery Grant  (Apr. 2008)
    We received an NSERC Discovery Grant for research on meteor luminosity, fragmentation, and ablation (5 yr grant). NSERC have funded our program for 27 of the last 28 years.

  2. •Chris MacLeod Summer NSERC  (Mar. 2008)
    Chris MacLeod was awarded a summer NSERC undergraduate research award for telescopic lunar impact work.

  3. •John Thaler MDRS Commander  (Feb. 2008)
    John Thaler, who worked with our group summer 2004, was the commander of the Delta Mission 66 at the Mars Desert Research Station.