Dr. Patricia Burchat

This Wednesday, May 20 Physicist Patricia Burchat of Stanford University will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on The Dark Side of the Universe: Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Okay, what the heck is this dark matter and energy stuff?  Good question.  Actually, it is a bit of a mystery to scientists.

Let us tackle Dark Matter. We live in an average galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way contains about 100 billion stars.  Yeah, 100 billion stars is an average galaxy. Individual galaxies are concentrated into groups, called clusters of galaxies.  Clusters of galaxies are more than just galaxies; the space between galaxies in clusters is filled with hot gasses. These gasses are so hot that they are detected in X-rays and not visible light. Scientists checked out the distribution and temperature of the hot gasses to determine how much total matter there is in that part of space. They discovered that there is five times more material in clusters of galaxies from the galaxies themselves and the hot gasses. Most of the stuff in clusters of galaxies is invisible, scientists thus presume that most of the matter in the entire Universe is invisible. This invisible stuff is called Dark Matter.

Dark Energy is a different story that is not easily explained here. Let us just say that dark energy refers to the fact that some kind of stuff must fill the vast reaches of mostly empty space in the Universe in order to be able to make space accelerate in its expansion.

Dr. Patricia Burchat is Chair of the Physics Department at Stanford University.  She studies matter and antimatter created at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, also the bending of light by the gravity of massive clusters of galaxies far away.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick Theater.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, May 20
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888

Dr. Margaret Race

Spend Earth Day April 22 learning about The Danger of Mingling Microbes!

Knowing that microbes can survive the harsh environment of space, ecologist Margaret Race stresses the importance of planetary protection. Her work focuses on the scientific, technical, legal and societal issues of ensuring that missions to Mars and other solar systems do not either unintentionally take terrestrial microbes along or return any microbes to Earth. Unintentionally taking microbes along on a mission could complicate test results in knowing if the microbes are actually from Mars or brought along from Earth.

Dr. Race will give a non-technical, illustrated behind-the-scenes view of “environmental management” planning for solar system missions, and explain the role of the Outer Space Treaty and other related national and international policies. She will also discuss the varied societal issues likely to arise from discoveries about life beyond the Earth.

Dr. Margaret Race is an ecologist at the SETI Institute who works with NASA and the international space community to develop, refine, and apply planetary protection policies to missions to the planets. She has also worked at both the Environmental Protection Agency and KQED Television.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick Theater.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, April 22
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

This Wednesday, January 21, astronomer Anthony Colaprete of NASA’s Ames Research Center will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on Prospecting for Water on the Moon: The Upcoming LCROSS Mission.

Sometime this year NASA will purposely crash two spacecraft into a permanently shadowed crater in one of the Moon’s polar regions. Yes, purposely.

The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission is to determine the presence or absence of water (ice and vapor), hydrocarbons and hydrated materials. The LCROSS mission is going to do this by directly impacting one of the permanently-shadowed regions near the moon’s pole and creating a crater, throwing debris and potentially water ice and vapor above the lunar surface.

The two main components of the LCROSS mission are the Shepherding Spacecraft and the Centaur upper stage rocket. The Centaur rocket will impact the moon causing a cloud of lunar debris. The Shepherding Spacecraft, which has scientific instruments on-board including cameras, will take pictures of the Centaur’s descent and impact into the moon. Four minutes later, the Shepherding Spacecraft follows almost the exact same path as the rocket, descending down through the big plume and analyzing it with special instruments. The Shepherding Spacecraft will then crash into the moon. This impact may be seen using an amateur telescope.

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick Theater.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, January 21
7:00 pm

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888

The Cassini spacecraft has just entered its fifth year exploring the planet Saturn, its rings, and its large family of moons, including Titan.

This Wednesday astronomer Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute will give a non-technical, illustrated talk on Saturn’s Restless Rings: Latest Results from the Cassini Mission.

The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft launched on October 15, 1997 began its 7-year journey to Saturn arriving on July 1, 2004.

The Cassini-Huygens program is an international cooperative effort involving NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian space agency, as well as several separate European academic and industrial contributors.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is the first to explore the Saturn system of rings and moons from orbit. The European Space Agency’s Huygens Probe landed on Titan in January 2005. Instruments on both spacecraft are providing scientists with vital data and the best views ever.

Cassini has been making numerous orbits of Saturn, flybys of Titan along with flybys of some of the other moons.

Saturn’s rings, believed to be made of pieces of shattered moons, comets and asteroids, are the most extensive and complex ring system in our solar system, extending hundreds of thousands of miles from the planet.

Dr. Mark Showalter, whose research focuses primarily on ring-moon systems, will share some of the pictures from Saturn and take a close-up look at the “lord of the rings.”

Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Arrive early to locate parking.
Parking lots 1, 7 and 8 provide stair and no-stair access to the Smithwick theatre.

Smithwick Theater, Foothill College
12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

Wednesday, November 12
7:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.

Admission: Free
Parking: $2.00

650-949-7888