October 19th - Vacation guide to the Solar System

Have you planned your next vacation yet? For those of you interested in winter sports, the onset of November means you can finally start hitting the slopes at the variety of ski resorts within the US! But, why not kick things up a notch? Want to get bigger air so you can practice back-to-back frontside 1080s and rival the likes of Chloe Kim? Then head on out to Pluto!

If you're not a big fan of snow, fear not! Jana Grcevich, our speaker on Friday, stepped us through the top 10 vacation spots within the Solar System. From taking in the breathtaking views of Saturn's haxagonal cloud pattern around its north pole to taking a leisurely blimp ride through the upper atmosphere of Venus; there is bound to be something everyone would enjoy! As Jana explained, we are at the dawn of a space tourism revolution, and although there are plenty of hurdles to overcome (such as how to protect ourselves from the lethal radiation doses we would be exposed to on such trips), it's fun to daydream about touring the Solar System one day.

"But I want to go right now!" Yeah, I hear ya! Fortunately Jana gave a couple of options we could all pursue starting now! The Intergalactic Travel Bureau, a group that Jana is a part of, has put out a virtual reality app that allows smartphone users to embark on "space vacations". So go get yourself a cardboard VR viewer, download the app, and start exploring! Alternatively, Jana briefly talked about a book she and Olivia Koski co-authored: "Vacation Guide to the Solar System", a fun book for readers of all ages.

After the talk, Jana answered many fun questions from the audience and had awesome Solar System post cards to pass out. The audience then headed up to the roof for some star gazing but were instead greeted with mostly cloudy skies. Nevertheless, views from atop the roof are always a nice treat!



-- Jorge Cortes (graduate student)

Apr 1 - New Horizons

This week Lauren Corlies, a sixth year graduate student here at Columbia, took us on a journey to the far reaches of the Solar System with the fastest spacecraft every built.

New Horizons is the fruit of a project spanning decades and left Earth nearly 10 years ago. Launched with the principle goal of a Pluto flyby, Lauren chronicled its path through the inner solar system and the asteroid belt, its close encounter with asteroid 132524 APL, and the gravity assist from Jupiter which enhanced its speed and gave it the energy needed to reach Pluto.

After she described the various scientific instruments onboard New Horizons (which include high-resolution optical, ultraviolet and infrared cameras and spectrometers, magnetic field sensors, particles counters and radio science experiments), Lauren told us about some of the amazing science results from the mission. To name just a few, the New Horizons team has found that Pluto’s atmosphere is much denser than anticipated and contains stratified haze layers of unknown origin; that the bright and heart-shaped “Sputnik Planum” region is a vast plain of nitrogen ice with the consistency of toothpaste where water-ice mountains, kilometers in size, floating like icebergs; and that several of Pluto’s five satellites show signs of being the lumpy remnants from collisions of smaller bodies.

Lauren highly recommended checking out the New Horizons website to see more fascinating pictures from the flyby and the spacecraft’s current status as it exits the solar system.

-- David Hendel (graduate student)

Sept 18: Hubble IMAX

The Hubble Space Telescope has been humanity's eye on the universe for over 25 years now. In honor of the observatory's birthday this year, last Friday we screened the IMAX film "Hubble" at Columbia. We were moved to a smaller room this year, but one of our biggest crowds ever came out to celebrate Hubble with us.

Hubble was launched in 1990, but was partly disabled until a 1993 servicing mission installed a contact lens (of sorts) that allowed Hubble to reach its full potential. Though the movie included clips from the launch and first servicing mission, it focused on the final shuttle mission to Hubble in 2009 (there were four servicing missions with five shuttle visits in total, not including launch). We watched as the astronauts, including now Columbia Engineering Professor Mike Massimino, persevered through technical and mechanical challenges to replace important instruments and stabilizing gyroscopes. These repairs enabled Hubble to continue its crucial role of observing our universe.

Another highlight of the film was the animated fly through of the iconic Hubble image of the Orion Nebula. The Hubble data on Orion is so detailed that scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications were able to reconstruct the Nebula in 3D. Although we couldn't show the 3D version, flying through the brightly colored nebula and zooming in to see the gaseous disks around infant stars took everyone's breath away.

After the movie, we showed a simulated clip of the Andromeda Galaxy colliding with our own (based on Hubble data), along with a cool solar system model built in the Black Rock Desert. On the roof, graduate student Steven Mohammed and four other volunteers who showed off the Andromeda Galaxy and the Ring Nebula. And when one of our 3D projectors on the 13th floor crashed, undergraduate Briley Lewis and grad student Zephyr Peyore thought fast and created a new presentation to educate visitors.

-- Stephanie Douglas (graduate student)

December 6: Comet of the Century?

In the year after Comet ISON's detection in September 2012, many predicted that its close encounter with the Sun would produce a show worthy of the title "comet of the century".  However, as graduate student Erika Hamden showed, Comet ISON's passage was less spectacular than predicted, though no less interesting.  The comet's orbit showed that it came from the Oort cloud, a sphere of small icy bodies surrounding the Solar System.  Objects in the Oort cloud probably spend most of their time around 0.75 lightyears from the Sun, but occasionally a nearby star can perturb the cloud and send comets into the inner solar system.  Since Comet ISON came from the Oort cloud, it hadn't interacted with the Sun before and so it could provide information about the composition of Oort cloud bodies.

Erika played movies like the one above from several space-based solar observatories (i.e., NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, and NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) showing Comet ISON as it approached the Sun and after its closest encounter. Astronomers had predicted that, after it passed by the Sun, Comet ISON would be very bright and spectacular to see. However, the comet broke up when it got close to the Sun.  The movies showed that some bright debris reappeared after Comet ISON passed the Sun, but it faded rapidly, indicating that the comet had fallen apart. Comet ISON was probably a loose ball of ice that was destroyed by the Sun's heat, like a poorly-made snowball that falls apart before reaching its target.  Although it was not the "comet of the century", Comet ISON provided astronomers with plenty of information about Oort Cloud comets and provided everyone with a great show.

Clouds and rain prevented any roof activities, but undergraduate Claire Ding showed 3D movies on the 13th floor, and graduate student Andrew Weis gave a slideshow of highlights of the winter sky in the lecture hall.

--Steph Douglas (graduate student)

September 27: Voyager's Venture

The Voyager satellites are currently the furthest man-made objects from Earth.  Launched in 1977, these satellites are now at the edge of our solar system.  In his lecture, PhD student David Hendel took the audience through the story of this highly successful mission, from the initial design of the satellites to their current status past Pluto.  Taking advantage of a unique planetary alignment, David explained how the NASA scientists were able to set the instruments on a Grand Tour, flying by all of the planets on their way out of the solar system.  This tour has produced some of the highest quality images of the planets to date.

After the lecture, bad weather prevented observing.  Yet those who stayed were able to enjoy roof tours, to view our 3D wall or to listen to a description of the moons of our solar system and their naming history.  

-- Lauren Corlies (graduate student)

March 1: Martian Summer

We hosted author, Andrew Kessler, and approximately 80 members of the general public on Friday, March 1st to hear all about the people and the science behind NASA's Phoenix Mars mission. Kessler spent a year with the engineers and scientists who worked on Phoenix to learn what it takes to launch a spacecraft from Earth and safely place it on the surface of another planet. Phoenix landed near the north pole on Mars, the first craft to ever land in the polar regions of the red planet. It's mission was to study the history of water in the ice-rich boundary of the Martian arctic. To do this, the Phoenix lander was equipped with a robot arm that could scoop up soil samples for analysis by an array of instruments including a mass spectrometer, a wet chemistry lab, and a high resolution imager. Not only did Phoenix discover subsurface water ice, but it also found that Martian soil contained high concentrations of chloride which converts to perchlorate in the presence of sunlight. You can read all about the Phoenix mission and Kessler's experience in mission control in his book, "Martian Summer: Robot Arms, Cowboy Spacemen, and My 90 Days with the Phoenix Mars Mission" and you can follow him on Twitter here.

After the talk, audience members toured our rooftop observatory (with the help of graduate students Jennifer Weston and Yong Zheng and undergraduate Jose Montelongo), viewed 3D movies (with undergraduate Bryan Terrazas), and listened to graduate student Steph Douglas explain the myriad of motions experienced by the Earth from our rotation around the Sun all the way out to the expansion of the Universe.

Join us for our next event on Friday, March 15th when post-doc Ashely Pagnotta explains how supernovae are used to understand the mysterious force known as dark energy.

--Summer Ash (Director of Outreach)

September 14: The Moon in 3D

On Friday, we kicked off a new season of lectures and stargazing with a talk by cartographer Jeffrey Ambroziak. He spoke about a unique map projection technique he helped develop, called the "Ambroziak Infinite Perspective Projection." This technique allows image data and topographical data to be combined into a single 3D map which appears undistorted regardless of viewing angle. During the talk, Ambroziak shared his beautiful and unique three-dimensional map of the Moon. He also shared a series of anecdotes, including the story of how he befriended the famous science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who wrote the forward to his book "Infinite Perspectives: Two Thousand Years of Three-dimensional Map Making." Generously, Ambroziak provided every audience member with a full sized poster of his impressive 3D map of the Moon and red/blue glasses with which to view it. You can find more information about his projection at http://www.popviewmaps.com.

Unfortunately due to weather we were unable to observe, but audience members had the option to tour the rooftop observatory, view a 3D wall presentation by Bryan Terrazas, or listen to a slideshow on the moons of our Solar System presented by Rohan Sawhney. Thanks to our outreach director Summer Ash and all the volunteers that helped make the night a success.

Join us for our next Lecture & Stargazing event on September 28th at 8pm, where we will host a talk and book signing about black holes entitled "Gravity's Engines," by Caleb Scharf.

--Jana

March 30: Space Rocks in the Neighborhood

During our last public outreach night, Columbia Astronomy Professor, Greg Bryan, took a break from his normal schedule of simulating the processes of cosmic galactic evolution to inform us about objects a little closer to home. In his talk entitled, ''Space Rocks in the Neighborhood: The Dangers of Near Earth Objects,'' Prof. Bryan discusses the forces governing the orbits of near-earth objects (NEOs) and how many have impacted the Earth in the past. He explained that there are different types of NEOs depending on whether they cross the Earth's orbit or circle just inside or outside of it. What makes these objects dangerous is that for many asteroids and a few comets larger than a 1 kilometer (~.6 miles) across, real catastrophic damage can be done, with many global causalties.

Prof. Bryan also described the ranking system for potential threats by NEOs which is based on the size of the approaching object and the "projected" distance from impacting Earth. He pointed out that the key to adverting disaster by impact is to know the orbits of all concerning NEOs well in advance of a potential impact. If the orbits are known, then various efforts can be utilized to nudge the object out of an impacting trajectory towards Earth. While new telescopes and surveys have greatly expanded our knowledge of these potential "doomsday" rocks, only a complete survey of these objects, with multiple snapshots (to determine orbits), can help us prepare to deflect them out of harm's way.

Finally, Prof. Bryan pointed out different methods that can be used to deflect the objects in orbit ranging from painting the rock in a highly reflective coating such that photon pressure from solar rays can slowly push the rock away to detonating a nuclear warhead next to it to give it a more pronounced and immediate impulse away from a harmful trajectory towards Earth. You can read about NASA's Near Earth Object Program at their website and explore the near Earth environment for yourself, virtually of course, at the Minor Planet Center.

It seems that many people are concerned about our ability to track and advert a catastrophic impact, considering we had 260+ people in attendance. Even though the weather wasn't cooperating that evening, many people remained to enjoy our post lecture activities by either staying in the lecture hall and discussing the science in Astronomy Picture of the Day images, led by undergrad Jose Montelongo, or watching 3-D astronomy shows, run by graduating grad student, Jana Grcevich.

Our next public outreach lecture is on Friday, April 13th and is entitled "Where the Ocean Meets the Sky."

--Duane

February 17: Life in the Universe

Last night, we had a very successful outreach event headlined by PhD student Maureen Teyssier discussing where to look for Life in the Universe. She outlined the various components we understand to be necessary for life to exist elsewhere in the Universe including appropriate elemental materials, liquids, energy and stability. Furthermore, she pointed out the various ways in which we humans are searching for life, both in and out of the Solar System. If you want to know more, Maureen's talk was inspired by "The Search for Life on Other Planets" by Bruce Jakosky.

There were excellent conditions for observing, so attendees who went to the roof got to catch a glimpse of Jupiter and its moons, the Double Cluster, and the Orion Nebula through our telescopes. We also the 3D Astrowall demonstrations of educational astronomy briefings. In the lecture hall, there was discussion of recent astronomical news of observations and modeling of galaxy collisions and a Q&A period with graduate students and postdocs from the department. In all, we had about 200 people come join us.

Our next event is Friday, March 2nd, hope to see you then.

--Cameron