Torrential rains and violent forks of lightning couldn't stop the die-hard Astro Fans from coming to outreach Friday night. Jennifer Weston treated us to a talk concerning neutron stars, the complex and mysterious cousins of black holes. Jennifer spoke of their extraordinary density ; so dense Mount Everest could fit into a teaspoon! Neutron stars exist as an epic battle between the forces of gravity and quantum mechanics, and Jennifer was quick to point out that these extreme conditions introduce a host of mysteries concerning the stars' composition. The talk finished by discussing pulsars: rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit focused jets of light like cosmic lighthouses. The soggy patrons could have used a spin cycle, but we're not sure Neutron stars are what they had in mind: A star the size of Manhattan completing a rotation in under a second is quite a step up from your average Maytag appliance.
After the lecture, Cameron Hummels was on hand to give tours of the observatory while Yuan Li treated visitors to our 3D Wall. Back in the lecture hall Munier Salem and Josh Schroeder hosted a game show centered around the question "How big is the Universe?" The answer involved a surprising number of soccer balls. While mysteries surrounding the cosmos remained, we're happy to report one thing had been cleared up by the end of the evening: The sky!
--Munier
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