Astronomy on Tap: Jupiter and Beer in Space

We had our second Astronomy on Tap event tonight, and it was a packed house.  A few days earlier, LA Weekly had featured us as a fun activity to do in LA this week, and thus we ended up with over 110 people filling up our venue, Der Wolfskopf Pub.

We started the night with a great talk by Dr. Rachael Beaton, a postdoc at the Carnegie Institute in Pasadena. Rachael's talk was entitled "The First Beer Came from Space", and it covered how and why different types of atoms and molecules, form in the cores of stars and in the clouds of gas in the far reaches of space.  Even our favorite molecule, alcohol, can form in these systems. Rather than sending up space craft to mine rare metals in asteroids, she suggested we might mine the quadrillions of gallons of alcohol in these clouds.

We had an intermission where the audience could interact with the various astronomers present in the audience, and we had astronomy-themed quiz questions flash across the television monitors.  After about 20 minutes, our second talk was given by Dr. Rahul Patel from NASA's IPAC facility in Pasadena. Rahul spoke about the recent Juno mission that NASA launched to Jupiter, what its goals were, and what we can learn from it.  

After another intermission period, several of our local experts got up to answer audience questions on a variety of astrophysical topics including galaxies, black holes, and more.  Finally, we graded the quiz questions and went through them together.  Our winner received a signed copy of Caltech Astrophysicist Dr. Kip Thorne's book: "The Physics of Interstellar".

Thanks to everyone who attended, and thanks to Der Wolfskopf for hosting us!  See you in a month!

--Cameron

Lecture & Stargazing: Simulating the Universe on a Supercomputer

It was a packed house tonight for our lecture featuring Dr. Cameron Hummels explaining how scientists use computers to simulate different astrophysical phenomena.  Cameron described how computers provide us with a means of creating "experiments" inside the virtual space of a computer, where we can control every factor by programming in the physical laws that we want to test.  He provided some simple examples including falling and bouncing balls, planets orbiting the Sun, and then showcased some cutting-edge simulations involving supernovae, galaxy mergers, and the evolution of our Universe as a whole.  Cameron even had a live demo where he logged on to the Blue Waters supercomputer, one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, and showed that it isn't as fancy as you might expect it to be based on its portrayal in movies and television programs.

Photo credit for all images: Christophe Marcade

Afterwards, we had a panel Q&A from our experts to answer all of your questions about various fields within astrophysics including the cosmic microwave background, human space flight, and dark matter.  Some excellent discussion was had!

Finally, people joined us on the adjacent field for excellent views of our Solar System and beyond.  We had great views of many of our planetary neighbors including Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon.  In between planetary targets, we spent some time looking at the Ring Nebula, a beautiful nearby planetary nebula, and Albireo, a great double star with two very differently colored stars.

The lecture and panel Q&A were recorded, so you can watch them at your leisure on this page.  Thanks to all 150 people who came out tonight, and make sure to come back for our next event, Astronomy on Tap, in two weeks!

--Cameron