Tuesday, August 9, 2011

August 5: Practical Astronomy

While we're sad that summer is ending, this happily means the return of our lecture series! We started off on an unique and interesting note with Dr. M. Ryan Joung giving a talk on how astronomy can have practical uses or in his own words, "on the usefulness of 'useless' knowledge." Ryan used many examples to highlight the advances astronomy have spurred in other fields. Did you know that your GPS system uses quasars to calibrate the positions of its satellites in the sky? Or that they rely on Einstein's theories of special and general relativity for accuracy? Ryan also pointed out that taking and processing images have been the forte of astronomers for decades. Their work with CCDs have helped make modern cameras possible. Also, image processing techniques that astronomers use to study structures in galaxies are now successfully being used to identify cancer cells. While focusing on the practical aspect of astronomy, Ryan concluded by reminding us that astronomy is beautiful and we truly do it to understand our place in the universe.

After the lecture, we were lucky enough for the clouds to stay at bay and had our first public observing session of the new semester on the roof. Munier Salem, Josh Schroeder and Christine Simpson showed people the Moon, Saturn and Albireo. Meanwhile, Jana Grcevich led people on a "Tour of the Cosmos" using the 3D wall. Finally, some remained in the lecture hall to listen to presentations about JWST and Kepler from Lauren Corlies and Yuan Li. Overall, it was a great start to the semester.


No comments:

Post a Comment