Announcements

“Bright Galaxies, Dark Skies”

By James D. Lowenthal Professor of Astronomy
Smith College Northampton, Massachusetts
November 24 (Sunday) at 9:30 am Philippine Standard Time/November (Saturday) at 8:30 pm EST

How did galaxies like our own Milky Way Galaxy — home to the Sun and over 100 billion other stars — form soon after the Big Bang? How did they evolve over billions of years into the galaxies we see near us today? One way to address those questions is to look far back in time to see galaxies forming directly. Some of the most spectacular and interesting such distant galaxies are dusty, star-forming galaxies, some of which are forming stars more than 1,000 times faster than the Milky Way currently does.How do they do it? Where does the gas come from? Are they actually two giant galaxies colliding? What can they tell us about the formation of galaxies in general?Using the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, the Large Millimeter Telescope, and other major telescopes on the ground and in space, an international team of researchers called PASSAGES is taking a deep dive into these early cauldrons of star formation.Dr. James Lowenthal is a Professor of Astronomy at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.His research interests include high-redshift galaxies, Lyman-break galaxies, starburst galaxies, millimeter- and submillimeter-wavelength galaxies, galaxy formation and evolution, QSO absorption line systems, QSO host galaxies and ultra-faint radio sources. He has used some of the largest telescopes in the world, such as Keck, Hubble, Spitzer and the Large Millimeter Telescope in Sierra Negra, Mexico.

Register now for this free Zoom online talk using this link –

https://bit.ly/4flc6hw

or by scanning the QR code below using your cellphone camera.

After registration, check your registered e-mail for the Zoom meeting link. See you! Please share to your friends and relatives. Thank you!

“2024 RW1 and the Importance of Small Asteroid Impacts”
By Dr. Peter Jenniskens (meteor astronomer, SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center)
September 29 (Sunday) at 9:30 am Philippine Standard Time/September 28 (Saturday) at 9:30 pm EDT

Just after midnight on September 5, 2024, a small asteroid called 2024 RW1 impacted Earth’s atmosphere and created a very bright meteor (fireball) seen by many in Northeastern Luzon, Philippines. The green fireball created a veil of orange fragments, some of which may have survived and now rest on the bottom of the Pacific ocean as meteorites. This impact was special because it was announced by astronomers who had seen the asteroid approach Earth on a collision trajectory. Because the asteroid impact was announced, it was recorded in many spectacular videos. This was only the ninth time this had happened. In four of those cases, the impact was over land. In each case, astronomer Dr. Peter Jenniskens teamed up with local researchers and was able to guide the recovery of meteorites. This talk will narrate those adventures and what we have learned from studying the meteors and the surviving meteorites.
Dr. Peter Jenniskens is a meteor astronomer with the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in California. He is an expert on meteor showers and meteorite falls and is the author of the books “Meteor Showers and Their Parent Comets” (2006) and “Atlas of Earth’s Meteor Showers” (2023).
Register now for this free Zoom online talk using this link –

https://bit.ly/3MMwGej

or by scanning the QR code below using your cellphone camera.

After registration, check your registered e-mail for the Zoom meeting link. Please share to your friends and relatives as well. See you!

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“Chandra and the Invisible Universe”

18 February 2024 (Sunday) , 9:00 a.m. Philippine Standard Time (01:00 UTC), 17 February, 2024 8:00 pm EST

By Jonathan C. McDowell, PhD (Astrophysicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Chandra X-ray Observatory)

Abstract: The famous Hubble Space Telescope takes the sharpest visible-light images, but only its X-ray telescope cousins can see the invisible, high-energy light that helps complete the cosmic story. The sharpest X-ray pictures of the cosmos come from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched in 1999 but still making discoveries today. Chandra’s X-ray camera can see erupting black holes, exploding stars and colliding galaxies — some of the most energetic events in space.

Jonathan McDowell will highlight Chandra’s discoveries and explain how it and other X-ray telescopes probe cosmic dramas, while infrared images unveil the cool, gentle process of star birth, and pictures taken with ordinary visible light give an overview of the everyday life of the galaxies. Combining all three views has been crucial to the astonishing discoveries astronomers have made in recent decades.

Jonathan McDowell is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a member of the Chandra X-Ray Center, which operates the Chandra X-ray Observatory spacecraft.

McDowell obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, England, in 1987. After postdoctoral research at Jodrell Bank radio observatory in the U.K. and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, he has been at CfA since 1992.

McDowell studies quasars, galaxies and black holes as well as the effects of satellite constellations on astronomy. He is also the author of the internet newsletter Jonathan’s Space Report, which has been reporting on satellite and rocket launches since 1989.

In 1993, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid 1933 OB as 4589 McDowell in his honor.

Register now for this free Zoom online talk using this link – 

http://tinyurl.com/578uff2d 

or by scanning the QR code below

or in the poster shown here using your cellphone camera. After registration, check your registered e-mail for the Zoom meeting link. Please feel free to share to your friends and relatives. Thank you. See you!

“The Search for Planet 9”
20 January 2024, 10:00 a.m. Philippine Standard Time (02:00 UTC)
By Dr. Michael E. Brown (Professor of  Planetary Astronomy, Caltech)

In 2006, Pluto was demoted to a “dwarf planet”. Since then, a team of planetary scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has been searching for a hypothesized planet on the edge of the solar system. This is Planet Nine, and its search will be discussed by no other than Dr. Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at Caltech.

Dr. Michael E. Brown scans the skies searching for and intensely studying distant bodies in our solar system in the hope of gaining insight into how our planet and the planets around it came to be. In this quest, he has discovered dozens of dwarf planets (and demoted Pluto from planet to dwarf planet) and is currently hot on the trail of Planet Nine — a hypothesized body that is possibly the fifth largest planet of our solar system.
Dr. Brown has been on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 1996 and has authored more than 150 scientific papers. He has also won many awards and honors, including the Urey Prize from the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences, a Presidential Early Career Award, a Sloan Fellowship, and the 2012 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. He was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2014.

Abstract: In the past 175 years, more than 30 separate astronomers have suggested the existence of a giant planet beyond Neptune. They have always been wrong. In 2016, Konstantin Batygin and I joined the list, suggesting that Planet Nine, at a distance perhaps 20 times greater than that of Neptune, is the only plausible explanation for a wide range of phenomena in the distant solar system. I’ll talk about why we think Planet Nine is real, how we are continuing to develop our hypothesis, and what we are doing to track down this elusive planet and when we might find it. Or why we, too, might be wrong.

Register now for this free Zoom online talk using this link –

bit.ly/3Sjw5V6

or by scanning the QR code below

using your cellphone camera. After registration, check your registered e-mail for the Zoom meeting link. See you! Please feel free to share to your friends and relatives!

“NASA’s Best Space Images for 2023 “
By Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff, APOD co-founder
17 December 2023 (Sunday), 10:00 am Philippine Standard Time
(16 December 2023, Saturday, 9:00 pm EST)

The year is about to end, and for all amateur astronomers and astrophotographers out there, we would like to invite you to an online talk on “NASA’s Best Space Images for 2023 ” by no other than the co-founder of APOD, Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff.

Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff will present some of the favorite images and videos from NASA’s highly popular science website, “Astronomy
Picture of the Day,” or APOD (https://apod.nasa.gov). He will discuss the science and the stories behind these images. The subjects include the distant universe, the Solar System, auroral displays from our increasingly active Sun, and much more.

Dr. Robert J. Nemiroff worked at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, before joining the Physics Department of Michigan Technological University. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of Pennsylvania, and his main research interests include gamma-ray bursts, gravitational lensing and cosmology. In 1995, he co-created the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD), which he continues to co-write and co-edit to this day. In 2023, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid 2002 GB185 as 270558 Nemiroff in his honor.

Register now for this free Zoom online talk using this link – https://bit.ly/3Grlkcs

or by scanning the QR code below or in the poster shown here using your cellphone camera.

After registration, check your registered e-mail for the Zoom meeting link. See you! Please feel free to share to your friends and relatives.