Monday, May 04, 2009

May eNewsletter from the Minnesota Planetarium Society

In this issue from the Minnesota Planetarium Society

"Dark Energy" Public Lecture Thursday May 7
President's Message
May Skies
Does Space Smell?

"Dark Energy" Public Lecture

As part of their Kaufmanis Lecture Series, the University of Minnesota Department of Astronomy is pleased welcome guest speaker Alexei Filippenko from the University of California, Berkley Astronomy Department. He will be presenting Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe on Thursday May 7, 7pm,  at the Bell Auditorium. Further information is available by clicking on the announcement on the department's website, http://www.astro.umn.edu

"Dark Energy and the Runaway Universe"
Who: Alex Filippenko
         Award-Winning Professor from University of California, Berkeley
What: Karlis Kaufmanis Public Lecture
Where: Bell Museum Auditorium
            10 Church St SE
            Minneapolis, MN 55455
When: 7:00 PM, Thursday, May 7, 2009
Why: To hear a fantastic speaker discuss Dark Energy
Cost: Free

Editor’s Note: This is likely to be one of the best public lectures you will hear. Don’t miss it.

President’s Message
Last month Peggy Leppik introduced me to you and I am thrilled to be the new President of the Society. In my first two weeks, I saw Sally Brummel and the ExploraDome in action, attended several Dome sponsorship meetings with Sandra Larson, met several of our partners at Hennepin County, and witnessed the occultation of Venus and the Moon on Earth Day.

On my third day at the Minnesota High Tech Convention, I heard Marc Lautenbach, General Manager of IBM North America, state that China will graduate 600,000 engineers in 2009, eight times more than the United States! India will graduate five times more than the U.S.

We need to invigorate our youth through experiential scientific learning and the Minnesota Planetarium and Space Discovery Center can and will do just that.

The Planetarium will be the next jewel in the heart of downtown Minneapolis for the entire state of Minnesota. I am extremely excited to be leading this project and I look forward with great anticipation to meeting many of you. With all of your help, the board and staff will raise the capital and with our Hennepin County partners build a state of the art Planetarium and Science Discovery Center that will inspire all. Our hope is that all children who experience the Planetarium will be motivated to follow their curiosity with vigor.

Angus M. Vaughan, President, MNPS

May Skies
The Big Dipper shines high in the sky in May at about 10pm. Use it as a guide to star hop to other stars and constellations. Follow the pointer stars, the two stars on the end of the scoop, out of the scoop to the pole star, Polaris in Ursa Minor. In the other direction, the pointer stars lead you to Leo the Lion. Saturn lies just below Leo. From the Dipper follow the curved handle to “arc to Arcturus”, a bright star in Bootes. Continue along that same arc to speed on to Spica, the brightest star in Virgo. At 11 pm, Saturn shines about 40 degrees above the southwest horizon. Jupiter and Venus awake us in the morning hours around 5 am. By that time the Earth has rotated so that the Dipper rests on the northern horizon but you can still follow the pointer stars to Polaris. See http://skymaps.com for sky charts.

Bright Moon-Planet Conjunctions in May

Does Space Smell?
Did you hear the one about the "space raspberries"?  It's true!  Astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn and Cornell University have discovered the molecule ethyl formate in space, which helps give raspberries their smell, and also has a hint of rum.  The astronomers discovered the molecule in a giant cloud of dust and gas at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.  Their work is part of a larger effort to find the building blocks of life in space.  Giant clouds of molecules are quite common in space, and new stars and planetary systems form in them, collapsing under the force of gravity. The largest molecule discovered so far is napthalene, with 10 carbon and 8 hydrogen atoms.  For more information, check out http://tinyurl.com/d5dh67