February 27: Harlem Sidewalk Astronomy

Five members of our department ventured out on a beautiful, clear evening into neighboring Harlem last night. We brought with us two small telescopes and loads of NASA bookmarks and posters to give out to interested participants. Setting up on the Federal Plaza at 125th street and Adam Clayton Powell (just down from the Apollo Theater), we pointed our telescopes towards some of the highlights of the sky this season: Jupiter, Mars, and the first-quarter Moon. Many curious passersby stopped to see what we were doing there and to take a glimpse of the heavens. Some individuals just wanted a chance to see the sky, while others wanted to discuss something astronomical they read in the news or heard from a friend.


In the end, the clouds came up to block our celestial viewing, and the wind shook our telescopes and made it unpleasant to stand around. We returned home, satisfied to have reached out to around 120 people over the course of the night. Great work, Bryan, Jennifer, Jose, and Marcus!

--Cameron

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

February 3: Top 11 Astronomy Stories of 2011

Last night, graduating grad student, Jana Grcevich, kicked off our Spring lecture series by recapping the "Top 11 Astronomy Stories of 2011." Some of the highlights included: the most massive galaxy cluster found, a possible detection of the Higgs boson, a possible detection of a supermassive black hole devouring a star, the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics going to three astronomers, and the discovery of over 3000 new exoplanets.

Jana ranked the new planet discoveries as number one on her list and many people would agree. Understanding and determining the available real estate for life to grab a foothold in our galaxy, let alone the rest of the Universe, ranks as one of the top 3 questions asked by humanity since humanity could ponder its own existence. Jana explained how the discoveries were made, by the Kepler space telescope, by stating that it measures the dimming of light from a star to determine the nature of the object causing the dimming due to occultation (the object passing in front of the star). She then focused on some of the gems from this exciting database of planets which included the discovery of a super earth-massed planet (roughly 2.5x) orbiting around its star in the habitable zone - an object known as Kepler 22b. Afterwards, she pointed out some planets orbit around binary stars, giving a shout out to the fans of Star Wars who recall Tatooine’s planetary system. Last, but not least, she displayed the best determination for many planetary systems’ orbits and configurations which showed us that planetary systems similar to our own are actually common place and not rare as previous thought based on the planetary systems discovered before the Kepler mission.

Many good questions were asked from the 140+ attendees last night, proving that a recap of the LAST year’s exciting discoveries was a great way to start off THIS year’s lecture series.

--Duane

December 16: How I Discovered A Supernova

We had a wonderful turnout for Caroline Moore's talk "How I Discovered a Supernova." Caroline gave an enthusiastic and informative talk that covered all aspects of her amazing discovery of SN2008ha. Caroline primed her audience with the background on stellar evolution needed to understand why supernova form and emphasized what types of stars ultimately end as supernova (not all do!). She mentioned some debate that has surrounded the classification of the SN2008ha -- indeed, SN2008ha has a very low luminosity and determining its class has required followup work using a wide range of telescopes to understand its nature. Caroline described the process of "blinking" frames that she used to find SN2008ha. There were many children present in the audience, and in the end she let them try to find SN2008ha by blinking the frames and letting them find the supernova. Indeed, this proved more difficult than expected but also got the point across that this kind of work requires extreme meticulousness. After the talk, Caroline answered a range of questions and this is when we learned that she also discovered another supernova recently: SN2009he!

Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy but around 40 people still went up to the rooftop observatory for a tour, led by grad student Josh Schroeder and assisted by Jeff Andrews, Curtis Cooper, Ian Allen, and Miao Li. Grad student Jana Grcevich led 3D visual simulations up on the 13th floor of Pupin Hall. In the lecture hall after the talk, undergrad Emir Karamehmetoglu and I showed the video "Cosmic Collisions" and this led to an open discussion on a variety of astronomy topics. Thanks to all the volunteers and the 170 people who came out for the night!

--Allyson

December 2: Are there other Universes?

Last night we had a fantastic lecture given by postdoctoral researcher David Kagan entitled: "Is Our Universe Alone in the Multiverse?" David covered a full introduction to assure everyone was on the same page for this high-level but philosophically interesting subject. He described the idea of an expanding observable universe, the multiworlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the inflaton field theory and how it could describe other universes popping into existence ourside of our observable window and more. After his talk, he fielded questions for the remainder of the period from a group of dedicated enthusiasts.

In addition to the lecture, we had great observing conditions on the roof. Adrian Price-Whelan led a crew of graduate volunteers on our telescopes, helping attendees see the Pleiades, the Andromeda Galaxy, the first-quarter Moon, and Jupiter. In addition Yuan Li ran the 3D visualization wall permitting attendess to see simulation results and education movies in 3 dimensional projections. Thanks to all of the 160 people we had turn out!

--Cameron

November 18: The Truth About Black Holes

On Friday, November 18th, over 200 astro enthusiasts gathered in Pupin to hear "The Truth About Black Holes." Dan D'Orazio shed some light on these enigmatic photon traps, discussing gravity, the equivalence principal and time as a malleable entity. Dan cut past the hype and speculation surrounding these theoretical predictions, and instead focused attention on the astrophysical contexts in which black holes exist, and how we can spot them.

Afterwards folks ascended to the roof, where Hugh Crawl, Jeff Andrews, Lauren Corlies, Sam Gordon and Lia Corralles showed visitors Jupiter, the Pleiades and Andromeda. For those who stayed downstairs, Munier Salem and Jenna Lemonias led a short quiz on Planet Trivia, which was entirely too easy for the stalwart enthusiasts.

--Munier

November 4: Captain Cook and the Cosmic Yardstick

Last Friday, Professor Martin Hendry, from the University of Glasgow, described how the first measurements of the size of the solar system were conducted, first by the ancient Greeks, and later refined by observations of the transit of Venus from two different towns in England. He demonstrated how the geometry of the transit, seen from two different locations, can provide enough information to determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Martin then described the voyage of the HMS Endeavor, and how the measurement of the transit of Venus from the island of Tahiti provided the most accurate measurement of the astronomical unit (AU) until Radar allowed for more refined measurements.

Following the talk, Brandon gave a talk on the next few rungs of the distance ladder, and how the measurement of the AU allows us to measure much vaster distances. Jeff, Adrian and Miao enlightened visitors with views of the Moon, Jupiter, and Uranus on the roof, lead by Sam Grunblatt. Jana expertly ran the 3D wall, highlighting some of the more exciting events in the universe, and Jia helped with organizing and ensured that visitors were able to find their way to the roof and movies. Concurrently, Martin Hendry was delivering another talk, this time for an audience of students from one of the astronomy department's other ventures, Rooftop Variables. All in all, it was a very successful night for Columbia Astronomy.

--Brandon