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Ryosuke Nakamura,
Kobe University, Japan
Last updated: October 1999
E-Mail: ryosuke [at] komadori.planet.sci.kobe-u.ac.jp
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Brief Biographical Information:
Dr. Nakamura graduated from the Graduate School of Science and Technology of Kobe
University under
Prof. Tadashi Mukai
in 1996 and held a position as a research associate at the
Information Processing Center of Kobe University during the Leonid MAC 1998 mission.
As of April 2000, Dr. Nakamura has
moved to the Earth Observation Research Center of NASDA, Japan.
Current Research:
His main research interests are the origin and evolution of the solar system and
observations of small bodies in the solar system. Notably, he has worked on
in-situ imaging of asteroids, Martian satellites and the moon, ground-based
observations of minor bodies in our solar system, and theoretical studies of circumstellar dust
disks. He has worked on the optical properties of dust grains.
Important for the Leonid MAC mission, he has acquired considerable expertise
with the use of CCD imagers for precise measurements of faint diffuse glows, being able
to discern the zodiacal dust bands from the background zodiacal light in scattered visible
light.
Research on Leonid MAC:
Nakamura will head a conserted effort to study the faint glow of dust particles in the
Leonid meteoroid stream that might be seen when the Earth crosses the dust trail of comet
55P/Tempel-Tuttle. For that, his team will image the true radiant position of the Leonid
shower in a direction where the line of sight is along the meteoroid stream.
Results of this work are described here.
The diffuse glow of the approaching Leonid meteoroids
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