Astronomy on Tap: Supernovae and the Big Bang

The September 2016 Astro on Tap in Pasadena at Der Wolfskopff pub had an interesting start, as many of the audience members were mesmerized by the first Presidential debate. But after we decided to turn off the debates and start the session, the mood in the bar was lifted dramatically. We started off with Dr. Ragnild Lunan, a postdoc at Caltech, talking about "Spectacular Stellar Explosions" and the science of supernovae and old stars that eventually die off in spectacular explosions!

All photographs were taken by Christophe Marcade.

Our second talk was given by Dr. Andreas Faisst, a postdoc at IPAC/Caltech. Andreas talked about the early Universe, and detailed the evolution from The Big Bang all the way to the first galaxies with some amazing videos and balloon props!

We also had a lot of people participate in our astro trivia challenge. After a difficult selection, we gave away a few prizes including a NASA mug, t-shirt and exoplanet poster! All in all, it was a great positive night, despite the looming debate earlier in the night.

--Rahul

Lecture & Stargazing: The Invisible Universe Revealed

All photographs were taken by Christophe Marcade.

Tonight was our first night in a new location for our lecture series.  Due to some construction issues, we've now moved our lectures to Baxter Lecture Hall and our stargazing to Beckman Lawn (see our directions page for more info).  After some logistical issues we got started a few minutes late.  Anna Ho, our speaker for the night, gave a tremendous talk on the invisible universe, the universe we cannot directly perceive with our eyes.  

Anna described the various wavelengths of light in the electromagnetic spectrum, and how our eyes are only capable of viewing a very small fraction of them.  She described what sort of devices you have to create in order to "see" these other wavelengths of light, and what sort of objects you can then "see" like distance galaxies or the dust in between stars.  It was riveting!

After Anna's talk, the audience was welcome to stargaze out on the Beckman Lawn with our telescopes, or remain for a panel Q&A with our panel of experts.  Our panel consisted of Dr. Katherine Deck, Graduate Student Mike Wong, Dr. Anders Thygesen, and Dr. Cameron Hummels.  We had a great time talking with each other and our small audience.  

Stargazing out on the lawn was also pretty successful, and it looks like our new spot has less light pollution than the North Field.  We observed Albireo, Saturn, Mars, and the Moon.  Thanks to all 70 people who showed up at our new location!  We hope to see you again next month.

--Cameron

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

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

Astronomy on Tap: Exoplanet Roulette

Tonight we had our very first ever Astronomy on Tap event held in Los Angeles, and it was a wild success!  Astronomy on Tap is a nation-wide phenomenon where professional astronomers give informal talks in local bars on a variety of scientific topics followed by lots of discussion and interaction with the public.  Until now, there have been no organized events happening in Los Angeles, but we at Caltech are partnering with several other neighboring educational institutions to make this happen.

We held our first event at Der Wolfskopf, a german beer bar located in Old Town Pasadena gracious enough to offer us happy hour prices all night on food and on one of their beers.  The event was structured to have two short astronomically-themed talks with 15-minute intermission periods separating them.  During each intermission, audience members were encouraged to talk to the astronomers present in addition to playing our astronomy quiz that was being broadcast on the television sets.

Dr. Jessie Christiansen gave our talk for the night entitled "Exoplanet Roulette: Choose your Fate".  The premise is that you have the opportunity to travel to some exoplanet in the Universe, but you don't know which one.  By spinning the game wheel, you discover which exoplanet where you'll end up.

A couple of the exoplanets were happy endings for our audience members, but by and large the bulk of the exoplanets that have thus far been discovered are not very hospitable to human life.

Unfortunately, our second speaker had an emergency and wasn't able to join us.  We had a short panel Q&A with the variety of astronomers present, where prizes were awarded for particularly good questions from the audience.  Lastly, we finished the night by grading the trivia quizzes that people had submitted.  There was a three-way tie with 8/10 correct, and each winner won a prize of a NASA shirt or mug.  Congratulations to all of our winners!

Thanks to all 70 of the attendees and we hope you'll spread the word about our next event in a month on Monday, July 25 at 7:30PM.

--Cameron