Monday, May 12, 2008

Astronomy Day at the Science Museum of Virginia

I enjoyed several activities during the Astronomy Day event, for example:

I attended part of one lecture on "The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini" given by Dr. Anne Verbiscer of the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations,
Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
I saw a photo of Enceladus.
I liked the photo of Saturn shot from behind Saturn with back lighting from the Sun and Earth showing through the G Ring.

I attended a lecture on "The Search for Other Earths" given by Dr. Mike Strutskie, Department of Astronomy, University of Virginia.
He said some interesting things about planets on the science side and an interesting thing on the science fiction side.
He made the point that no extrasolar planets have been seen, the data suggests that some stars have extrasolar planets orbiting them.
He talked about a new way of using shade to view planets around other stars.
He talked about science fiction, for thirty years, showing life on other planets yet, we only had the idea of other planets in the universe after 1997.
I met Dr. Mark Adams, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville.
I missed his lecture "Exploring the Invisible Universe With Radio Astronomy", but he told me some things about radio astronomy after his lecture.

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