UPCOMING
CLUB MEETING
Friday,
August 8, at 7:30 pm
A Step
Towards Singularity: How CERN Solves the Cosmic Questions from the Bottom
Quark Up
Our club member
Greg Simonian will speak about CERN, where the "Large
Hadron Collider" is nearing completion. This is the trailblazing
European research site where outer space meets inner space, and where
we'll get a new look at conditions in the first moments of the universe,
hot on the trail of the Big Bang.
Members of
the public are welcome. Admission is free.
Location:
New Roads School, 3131 Olympic Blvd., Santa Monica.
For more information,
call (310) 495-7595
Click
here to see a map.
PAST MEETINGS:
In
July 2008, Tim Thompson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
gave a lecture on The Nature and Evolution of Galaxies.
Mr. Thompson has worked on the Spitzer and AIRS projects for JPL. He
is President of the Mount Wilson Observatory Association.
In June, Thor
Dockweiler gave a talk about the Tunguska impact event, prompted
by the 100-year anniversary.
In May, JPL's
Trina Ray, an insider on the Cassini Mission, gave
a presentation on Saturn and its moons--from the jets of Enceladus,
to saucer-shaped inner moons, to enormous lightning storms and strange
ring phenomena.
At our meeting
on April 11, UCLA's Andrea Ghez spoke about her groundbreaking
work on the center of the Milky Way, which she believes harbors a supermassive
black hole.
In March,
Dr. Luisa Rebull, Research Scientist at the JPL/Caltech Spitzer
Science Center, gave a talk on the Spitzer Sapce Telescope and its usefulness
for the research of star formation and the origins of our solar system.
Our February
talk was given by Stephen J. Edberg of the Jet Propulsion
Lab. Dr. Edberg, a popular speaker well-known to the astronomical community
(and to many in our club) shared his perspectives on the smaller and
cooler members of the solar system and stellar systems, from dust to
brown dwarfs and the company they keep.
In January,
David Saltzberg told us about his expeditions to Antarctica
to study a elusive particles that may hold some of the deepest secrets
about our universe: neutrinos.
In December
2007, Bob Eklund, of the Mt. Wilson Observatory Association,
who grew up among astronomers at Yerkes Observatory and has spent the
last quarter-century doing public outreach at Mt. Wilson told us about
these storied places, and how he has blended astronomy and poetry in
his life. In addition, Fabio Altenbach briefed us on
free astronomy software.
Our November
2007 speaker, Nate McCrady of UCLA, is an expert on
star clusters. He gave a lecture about the different type of clusters,
their formation and their importance for understanding the universe.
At the October
2007 meeting, Richard Ellis, Steele Professor of Astronomy
at the California Institute of Technology gave a talk on "Cosmic
Dawn : Gravitational Lenses and the First Galaxies in the Universe".
In
September 2007, Jed Laderman gave two talks: "From
Druids to the DaVinci Code" and "The Night Time Stars - Who
Are They?" Laderman is a science instructor with the Los Angeles
Center for Enriched Studies.
Additionally,
Robert Lozano made a presentation on his recent visit
to Hawaii.
The August meeting
on 10 August 2007 reatured Bryan Crandall, Professor
Emeritus of Physics of East Los Angeles College, speaking on "Dark
Matter - What Is It Good For?" providing an update on recent research
pertaining to same, and continuing in a series of dark matter talks
over several years.
Previously,
club president Thor Dockweiler showed us a pictures
of the comet McNaught.
At the meeting
in June, James
Bartlett presented the inner workings of NASA's space shuttle
fleet. (Jim is an engineer working for the company that builds the shuttle's
main engines. He recently spent time at Cape Canaveral but has now moved
back to California).
In May, Dr.
Carol Raymond, Dawn Project Deputy Principal Investigator,
told us about the unmanned spaceflight mission to Vesta and Ceres. You
can follow Dawn's progress here.
In April, Genesis
Project Manager Don Sweetnam from the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory explained how the Genesis spacecraft returned
samples to Earth and how the scientific payload was rescued after a
malfunction.
In March, Trina
Ray from the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory gave us an update on the Cassini
mission and on the latest disvoveries about Saturn and its moons.
At the February
meeting, Michelle Thaller from Caltech explained how
the Spitzer
Space Telescope is giving us revolutionary new insights into the
universe.
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