Lecture & Stargazing: Telescopes at the South Pole

One of our goals in holding these events is to share our experiences of what it’s like to be a scientist. Last night, postdoctoral fellow Abby Crites showed a picture of herself in the plane that scientists take to get to the South Pole. She talked not only about why the South Pole is such a great environment for studying the most distant light in the universe, but also about her personal experiences living down there to build a telescope.

Photo Credit for all Images: Christophe Marcade

  

After the talk, the event continued in two spaces. Outside, our telescope volunteers (led by the fearless Mislav) took advantage of the clear weather to show visitors a whole suite of objects, ranging from the moon to Jupiter to a nearby group of stars called the Beehive cluster. We even saw the International Space Station pass overhead, before it faded away behind the Earth’s shadow. 

Inside, we held an informal Q&A panel of graduate students and postdocs. From Abby’s talk, our visitors seemed to have cosmology on the mind — there were a number of questions about the cosmic microwave background and the early universe. We also talked about scientific accuracy in movies, the recently unveiled plan to send a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri, and our own galaxy, the Milky Way. 

As usual, the lecture and Q&A was recorded and you can watch them here. The lecture begins at 03:53, and the panel discussion starts at 43:25.

Thank you to the volunteers who helped make the evening such a success, and thank you to the over 80 visitors who attended — we hope to see you all back in a month for Jackie's talk on the history of air on Venus, Earth, and Mars!

--Anna

Lecture and Stargazing Event with Talk by Sebastian Pineda

Graduate Student Sebastian Pineda kicked off another great public night with a lecture on The Northern Lights on Earth and other planets in the Solar System.  Not only did it include spectacular footage of this beautiful phenomenon, but Sebastian provided a scientific explanation for what causes the aurora on the Earth, and how it differs on other planets.  For instance, while the aurora on most planets is due to interactions between its magnetic field funneling solar wind particles down into its atmosphere, Jupiter's aurora is also caused by plasma emitted from its nearest moons like Io and Europa impacting the outer layers of the gas giant.

Photo Credit for all Images: Christophe Marcade

After the talk, attendees were invited to look through our telescopes at the highlights of the spring sky, including the Orion Nebula, a first-quarter Moon, and Jupiter and its Galilean Moons.  The weather was clear, so everyone had a good view of the heavens.

Finally, we had a panel of scientists from the department on hand to answer questions regarding any astronomical topic the audience members wished.  Our panelists were Swarnima Manohar, Gina Duggan, Abby Crites, Drew Clausen, and myself.  We discussed black holes, cosmology, exoplanets, magnetic fields, radio-isotopes used as energy sources for spacecraft, and more.  It was really fun, so be sure to show up next time with more questions for our panel!

Just like last month, we recorded the whole event, so you're welcome to watch it at your leisure by clicking here.  The lecture begins at minute 4:00, and the panel discussion begins at 51:15.  Unfortunately, we had some technical problems with the camera, so it was unable to pick up video for the panel discussion, but there is audio at this point.  We will address this prior to our next event.

Thanks to the over 100 people who attended.  See you in a month!

--Cameron

First Lecture and Stargazing Event with Talk by Dr. Evan Kirby

Photo Credit for all Images: Christophe Marcade

Tonight we hosted our first event, officially kicking off our inaugural stargazing and public lecture series.  Professor Evan Kirby spoke to a room of 90 attendees about how he and other scientists use the Keck telescopes to study how dwarf galaxies evolve over time.  Utilizing spectrographic instruments to break starlight into its component colors, he is able to determine the chemical makeup of the stars inside these dwarf galaxies.  Once scientists know the chemical makeup of these stars, they can deduce how and when the stars formed to produce the galaxy as we see it today.

After the lecture, attendees were invited to look through our telescopes at the various objects visible that night including the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades, and the Moon.  Later in the night, Jupiter rose and we were able to see all four of its Galilean Moons!

Finally, we hosted an informal panel made up of three specialists from the field of gravitational wave astronomy.  Dr. Jamie Rollins, Dr. Chiara Mingarelli, and Dr. Leo Stein answered questions about the LIGO gravitational wave discovery last week providing some insight behind the announcement.  It was a lively discussion for over an hour about what the discovery means, and what it tells us about the Universe around us.

The entire event was recorded and is available to watch on your computer--go to this link.  To skip the announcement and deadtime, you can jump to the lecture beginning at minute 7:48, and the gravitational wave panel discussion beginning at minute 52:00.  We will be recording all of our lectures from now on, so you never have to miss an event!

Thanks to everyone who came out.  We're looking forward to a great year!

--Cameron

Supernova 2014J Observing Event

Nearly 500 people came to our Supernova 2014J event at the Cahill Center! Visitors heard some free lectures and saw fascinating astronomical objects near and far through our rooftop and portable telescopes.

Public Lecture with Jill Tarter

Dr. Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute gave a public lecture titled Are We Alone?.

Science Fair Projects at Washington Middle School

Grad students assisted 8th grade students with the development and execution of their science fair projects at Washington Middle School.

Venus Transit Viewing

The Cahill Center hosted a viewing of the transit of Venus in front of the Sun. Over 1800 people attended, making it our largest outreach event ever!

The Transit of Venus is a rare astronomical event. During a transit, Venus's orbit passes directly between the Sun and the Earth. This blocks some of the light from the Sun, causing Venus to look like a shadow on the disk of the Sun as seen from Earth. These transits occur in pairs, with Venus crossing the disk of the Sun twice, 8 years apart. The first transit of this pair occurred in 2004; This was truly a once in-a-lifetime chance to see this rare astronomical event! 

Montage of the 2004 Transit of Venus

The Caltech Astronomy Outreach group organized a large "star party" for the transit event. We broadcast feeds of the transit from the solar telescope on top of Linde+Robinson on Caltech campus, as well as live web feeds from telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii and from NASA headquarters.

In addition, we had three small telescopes set up on the athletics field behind the Cahill Center with special solar filters installed so guests could view the transit directly through the eye piece. Two of these telescopes were reserved for guests who RSVP'd for a telescope reservation on our website. The third was open to guests who did not RSVP.

We also had projections through several telescopes as well as special "eclipse" glasses that allowed visitors to look at the transit without magnification. In addition, several faculty members gave short talks in Hameetman auditorium inside Cahill on astronomy research being done at Caltech - including talks about the Sun and how transits of planets around other stars (exoplanets) allow astronomers to find and characterize other worlds.

This page shows an image of the sun taken by the department's 14-inch Celestron telescope, located on the rooftop of the Cahill Center on the Caltech campus. Starting at approximately 3:07pm on June 5, 2012, the planet Venus was seen to transit the face of the Sun.