Celebrate Spitzer's 5th Anniversary at Griffith Observatory!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Los Angeles' Griffith Observatory will host an event on August 22-24, 2008 to celebrate the fifth anniversary of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The Spitzer mission has shown us incredible new views of the universe in infrared light, which can be thought of as "night vision" or "heat" light. Spitzer's accomplishments include imaging the farthest galaxy yet seen, multiple breakthroughs in our understanding of the lives of stars and the first detection of light coming from planets orbiting other stars.

Highlights of the weekend-long event will include an unveiling of a brand new image from Spitzer on Friday afternoon and the outdoor display of a 140-foot-long Spitzer image of our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Caltech and JPL Astronomers will be on-hand all three days to answer questions about Spitzer and infrared astronomy, as well as present a series of public lectures in the Leonard Nimoy Event Horizon Theater.

Schedule of Events

Friday, August 22nd

12:30 PM Image Display Image Unveiling

12:30 PM Public Talk"Massive Star Formation in W5" - Dr. Lori Allen & Xavier Koenig Harvard / Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

7:00 PM Public Lecture"Seeing the Hidden Universe: Infrared Astronomy with Spitzer" - Dr. Robert Hurt Spitzer Science Center

Saturday, August 23rd

Daylight Hours Image Display Outdoor display of 140' Milky Way Survey Image

1:00 PM Public Talk"Stellar Generations: Viewing Star Birth with Spitzer" - Dr. Lori Allen Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

4:00 PM Public Talk"Many Worlds: Finding New Planetary Systems With Spitzer" - Dr. Michelle Thaller Spitzer Science Center

7:00 PM Public Talk"In the Heat of the Night: Using Infrared Telescopes to Explore the Invisible Universe" - Dr. Michelle Thaller Spitzer Science Center

Sunday, August 24th

Daylight Hours Image Display Outdoor display of 140' Milky Way Survey Image

1:00 PM Public Talk"My Milky Way: a Personal Tour of Our Own Galaxy, Revealed in the Infrared" - The Spitzer MIPS/GAL Science Team Spitzer Science Center

4:00 PM Public Talk"Seeing the Hidden Universe: Infrared Astronomy with Spitzer" - Dr. Robert Hurt Spitzer Science Center

7:00 PM Public Talk"Seeing the Hidden Universe: Infrared Astronomy with Spitzer" - Dr. Robert Hurt Spitzer Science Center

Image Caption: Full size poster "Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of Spitzer's Launch" held at Griffith Observatory.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)

Source: NASA / Spitzer

Permalink: http://www.sflorg.com/comm_center/announcements/p502_17.html

Time Stamp: 8/20/2008 at 1:05:36 AM UTC

Post 502 Announcements 017 Use navigation to scroll this category