November 30: Galactic Neighborhoods

On November 30th, about 100 people joined us to hear Columbia Astronomy Professor Jacqueline van Gorkom talk about how galaxies are influenced by their surroundings. Professor van Gorkom is a radio astronomer and does extensive research on galaxies. She showed us how strikingly different galaxies look in dense clusters of galaxies compared with fields. She explained that when a galaxy enters a galaxy cluster filled with hot intra-cluster gas, the cold gas inside the galaxy gets stripped out of it and thus star formation is quenched, which changes the color of the galaxy from blue to red. The audience raised a lot of interesting questions about galaxies and gravity.

After the talk, some people went to see the 3D movies on the 13th floor shown by Columbia undergraduate student Gladys Velez-Caicedo. Unfortunately, the sky was not clear on Friday, but Columbia Astronomy graduate students Adrian Price-Whelan and Jenna Lemonias gave a telescope tour to a group of people on the roof of Pupin. In the lecture hall, graduate student Yuan Li presented a slide show on spiral galaxies and Dr. Jana Grcevich talked about the Big Bang and the expansion of the universe.

Join us on December 14th for the last event of this semester: a panel discussion on Life, the Universe, and Everything!

--Yuan

November 16: Living with the Stars

Dr. Helena Uthas's talk was of a different strain than most of our previous outreach events. She shared her experiences of the three years she spent as a support astronomer on the beautiful and isolated Spanish island of La Palma, off the coast of western Africa. It is one of the prime spots for astronomy in the world today, having the best “seeing” available on our little blue planet (seeing is how much the atmosphere perturbs the images of stars as seen through a telescope).

In this personal narrative, Dr. Uthas walked the audience of ~180 people through her time at the Swedish Solar Telescope (SST) and the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT) and the life of an astronomer in such a remote location. We were shocked and impressed by the difficult loneliness that such a job requires, yet there also was a sense of lusting for the introspection afforded being in one of the most beautiful and untouched natural vistas in the world. After this captivating mix of science, nature, and self, the majority of the audience went up for observing. We had almost 200 people on the roof throughout the event, and our telescopes were pointed at the extremely bright Jupiter, along with the Pleiades star cluster and the Andromeda galaxy. Several people stayed in the lecture hall for a slideshow on galaxies. The evening wrapped up around 9 pm leaving attendees having played astronomer over the skyline of New York City and vicariously experiencing the life of an observational astronomer through Dr. Uthas.

 --Emir

October 19: The Universe is My Lab

On October 19th, graduate student, Or Graur from the American Museum of Natural History, addressed a question always asked of astronomers - "What exactly do you do?"  Or walked an audience of 70 people through the process taken to publish his most recent work on supernovae - from forming the hypothesis to testing it with telescopes and equipment to finally creating the scientific plot of merit.  It was a great inside look at how we practice astronomy today.

Unfortunately, the weather was less than stellar and roof observing was not possible.  However, our 3D movie wall provided entertainment after the talk.

--Lauren

October 5: X-ray Spectacular!

On October 5th, over 175 people came to Doug Thornhill's talk on the newly launched X-ray telescope NuSTAR. NuSTAR was assembled at the Nevis Laboratories of Columbia University and Doug worked with the NuSTAR team for almost four years as an undergraduate student at Columbia since the beginning of the project. He provided a clear and thorough explanation on how x-ray telescopes work, with a physical demonstration on how light is detected by the telescope. Doug then showed how NuSTAR was built and discussed the scientific goals of the telescope including the survey of super-massive black holes, supernovae remnants and compact objects, as well as the study of the energy transport of our sun.

After the talk, some people stayed in the lecture hall to enjoy the movie "High Energy Vision: The Chandra X-ray Observatory," which is another NASA X-ray telescope launched more than a decade ago. 

As it was a fairly clear night, many people headed up to the roof to view the night sky through the telescopes. Additionally, Columbia undergrad, Bryan Terrazas, showed 3D movies on the 13th floor. 

Join us for our next event on October 19th, when we will hear from Or Graur on how astronomers use the universe as their laboratory.

--Yuan

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

June 29: Transformers 3

On June 29, 2012, approximately 70 people came to see "Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon" in our third installment of our summer science fiction film series. The movie has most of the main cast return from the previous movies with Optimus Prime leading the way. The plot involves a government cover-up dealing with the real objective of the Apollo Moon missions and the space race with the Russia. In the movie, we find out that evidence that we are not alone is cemented in the Apollo 11 mission where they (implausibly) travel to the "dark side" of the Moon to examine an alien crash site. Once the Autobots find out that their long lost leader from the Cybertronian War crash-landed there, Optimus goes to revive Sentinel Prime, and as the plot ensues, finds out that he was betrayed by Sentinel to take over the Earth and use humans to restore Cybertron through slave labor. To accomplish his goal, Sentinel deploys a set of teleportation devices he created called "pillars" around the world with the help of the Decepticons. However, at the last minute, Optimus Prime and others are able to stop Sentinel and save mankind from eternal enslavement.

After the movie, PhD candidate in Astronomy, Duane Lee, talked about two scientific theories related to the movie: tidal-locking in relation to the origin of the Moon, and teleportation in the context of current research and future technology. The attendees enjoyed the movie and had many questions about tidal-locking of the Moon's orbit.

Join us for our next event when we screen "Waterworld" on July 13th followed by a discussion of the science of global warming.

--Duane

June 15: The Right Stuff

Last Friday, June 15th, we screened "The Right Stuff" for a dedicated audience who stuck around for all 3+ hours of the film which chronicles the evolution of the U.S. Space Program from its origins with the early test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base through the first class of astronauts selected for NASA's Project Mercury. The film is an adaptation of the book by the same title written by Tom Wolfe in 1979. Spanning the years 1957 to 1963, the film begins with Chuck Yeager's historical flight of the X-1 during which he was the first man to break the sound barrier. Soon after, the Russians launch Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, and the space race begins. NASA put out the call for astronauts and heavily recruited test pilots from Edwards for their ability and desire to push the flight envelope. 

The film highlights the initial milestones of the first astronauts: Alan Shepard's suborbital flight as the first American in space and John Glenn's orbital flight consisting of three complete orbits to become the first American to orbital the Earth. [Unfortunately, both men had been beaten to being the first man to accomplish either feat by the Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin.] The discussion afterwards focused on the accuracy of some of the events portrayed in the film as well as the current state of the experimental X-plane program. Of note was the controversial loss of Gus Grissom's capsule, Liberty Bell 7, during recovery. Subsequent analysis shows no evidence for any wrongdoing on Grissom's part and an expedition was even mounted in 1999 to raise the capsule from the ocean floor. Lastly, the discussion also touched upon the recent news of the X-37B, which recently landed at Vandenburg Air Force Base after 469 days in orbit. 

Be sure to join us for our next event on June 29th when we'll be screening "Transformers: Dark of the Moon". 

--Summer