The Royal Astronomical Society is pleased to announce that our free Public Talks for the 2025-2026 season will take place at Burlington House at 6pm.
Cosmic Dust
From fragments of asteroids to cometary tails, the plumes of outer solar system moons and even debris from our own activities in space, this talk will introduce the subject of dust in space
Speaker: Penny Wozniakiewicz
Speaker info:
Dr Penny Wozniakiewicz is based at the University of Kent as Senior Lecturer in Space Science.
Dr Wozniakiewicz's research interests include:
- Studying hypervelocity impacts in the laboratory
- Studying surfaces returned from low Earth orbit
- Investigating early solar system formation and evolution through the study of samples from comets and asteroids
- Investigating new methods for collecting extraterrestrial dust on Earth.
Dr Penny Wozniakiewicz studied for an MSci in Planetary Sciences at University College London before moving to Imperial College London to complete her PhD. Between 2009 and 2013 she was a postdoctoral research associate, firstly at the Institute of Geophysics & Planetary Physics, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California, USA and then in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kent. Penny went on to hold the Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Natural History Museum in London and remains a Visiting Research Associate there. Since 2015 she has been a Lecturer in Space Science at the University of Kent.
Dr Wozniakiewicz is an expert on extraterrestrial space dust, and how it can impact astronomy and wider human endeavours in space.
Their recent papers include:
- Blowing Hot and Cold: The Plumes of Io and Enceladus, Astronomy & Geophysics, Volume 66, Issue 4, August 2025, Pages 4.36–4.40, https://doi.org/10.1093/astrogeo/ataf036
- Feasibility of using CubeSats and small detectors for in-situ space debris and cosmic dust flux measurement
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