Tonight's event from 8 to 10pm on Friday, March 26th, was a great time for everyone. Over 60 people attended a lecture by Grad Student Yuan Li entitled "Shaping Galaxies with Supermassive Black Holes". Yuan discussed first what a black hole is, and then explained how SMBHs are almost always found at the center of galaxies. She explained the M-sigma relation in an amazingly understandable way and provided some ideas about what might cause this correlation, including a great movie of a galaxy merger. Yuan's lecture was interesting and elicited a huge number of questions from the people in attendance.
The weather was hazy, with views of Mars and the Moon. Later in the evening it cleared up a little more, and Mizor and Alchor were observed as well. The 13th floor classroom was put to new use with a movie screening by Lia Corrales of Tyler Noerdgen's investigation of the night sky in national parks. A compelling section of his work, called "Sky Above, Earth Below" , which details light pollution at so-called dark sky sights, was shown.
We got some press coverage of last night's event. Read it now in the Columbia Spectator.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 8, 2010
March 5, 2010: Gamma-ray bursts
We had an exciting evening on Friday March 5 from 7 to 9 pm with about 60 visitors to Pupin Hall and Rutherfurd Observatory. John Ruan, a Columbia College Senior in the Department of Astronomy (going on to graduate school next year) gave a fantastic lecture about gamma-ray bursts. Among the most amusing anecdotes he gave was the number of Coca-colas all of humanity would need to drink over the age of the universe in order to equal the amount of energy given off by one gamma-ray burst. The answer was a number too large to count in your lifetime!
Although it was hazy, the skies were clear enough to get a peak at Mars. The Red Planet is on a close approach to the Earth right now (an event that happens approximately once every two years) and so our view of it is getting to be pretty good. Even a small pair of binoculars can reveal that it is a disk and a moderately powered telescope can resolve the white polar ice caps! Definitely worth a look.
Although it was hazy, the skies were clear enough to get a peak at Mars. The Red Planet is on a close approach to the Earth right now (an event that happens approximately once every two years) and so our view of it is getting to be pretty good. Even a small pair of binoculars can reveal that it is a disk and a moderately powered telescope can resolve the white polar ice caps! Definitely worth a look.
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