Astronomy on Tap: Edwin Hubble and Earth-like Planets

We hosted another Astronomy on Tap event at Der Wolfskopf Pub tonight, and everyone had a great time.  We started the night with a stellar talk by Dr. Marja Seidel, a postdoc at the Carnegie Institute in Pasadena. Marja's talk was entitled "Galaxies with Edwin", and it was a comic-style presentation telling the story of how Edwin Hubble (and Henrietta Leavitt) discovered that our Milky Way galaxy was not the entirety of the Universe.  It was a great topic and a really innovative manner of presenting!

  

Next up, Dr. Calen Henderson, a postdoc at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, gave us a compelling presentation on the search for Earth-like planets in the Universe.  His talk "Earth through the Looking Glass" discussed why we search for Earth analogs, how we do it, and what are the prospects for finding life elsewhere in the Universe.  It's very relevant information, especially with the recent discovery of an Earth analog in our neighborhood at Proxima Centaur B.

We had several winners of our astronomical-themed pub quiz with some NASA shirts and hats as prizes.  Congratulations to all of the participants!  We look forward to seeing everyone next month!

--Cameron

Lecture & Stargazing: You Can't Spell Exoplanets without Ex(ecutions)

It was another busy night in Cahill for our lecture and stargazing. First up was Jessie Christiansen, talking about the existing history and study of extra-solar planets. Jessie first went through the (surprisingly!) long history of the idea of planets beyond our own solar system. As early as the middle ages, scientists thought about planets around other stars (usually with bad results!). But in the last twenty years, exoplanets have gone from being dismissed or ignored by astronomers to a vibrant field of study with thousands of detected planets. Jessie also discussed the efforts of the Kepler telescope, which has provided thousands of planet detections on its own. Jessie finished by describing some of the more incredible planets we've found- including one with liquid glass rain, some new baby planets, and others! 

After the lecture, Erika Hamden gave a short presentation on the Perseid meteor shower, which peaked the night before. Unfortunately for our star gazers, the best time to see the shower was later in the night (when our wonderful telescope volunteers would be long gone), but Erika encouraged everyone to get to dark sky sights to see other meteor showers in the future.

Lastly, we had a great Q&A panel, discussing planets, life in the universe, telescopes, and black holes. A fabulous evening for all!

On the stargazing front, three telescopes observed Mars, Saturn, and the Moon to start, before switching over to other dark sky targets later in the night. Some of our attendees looked studiously for meteors, but there were only a few sightings so early in the night. This will be our last star gazing from the north field for a few months, while the athletic department installs a turf field. Be on the look out for information on our new location for the next few months!

--Erika