The Physics and Astronomy department would like to announce that two of our students, Aaron Bell and Andrew Gott, have each won an American Astronomical Society's Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award for their poster presentations at last week's 219th AAS meeting in Austin, Texas!

Posted at 10:31

Hosted by Dr Rachel Campbell the new show titled "NASA's Year of the Solar System", promises New Worlds & New Discoveries all accessible from the comfort of Earth! The presentation will detail the NASA spacecraft which will be heading for key locations during the Year of the Solar System from October 2010 until August 2012 - a Martian year that encapsulates almost two Earth years of exciting mission events.

Posted at 12:43

Supernova 2011dh, which was discovered on May 31st at 14th magnitude in M51 (the Whirlpool Galaxy by the Big Dipper), seems to have become nearly 20 times brighter in the past month making it visible in many amateur telescopes, especially now with moonlight gone from the evening sky. A supernova is what happens when a star violently expolodes, this explosion is often brighter then the entire galaxy when it first occurs and then becomes fainter as time goes by.

Posted at 16:40

Yesterday the Planetarium show was canceled due to a large tree branch falling on the presenters car and blocking the driveway. Hopefully those people who made it out in the storm will be able to come back and see the Venus show on another occasion - perhaps at tonight's presentation which will start promptly at 7pm.

Posted at 11:41

VENUS: OUR SISTER PLANET A Summer Planetarium Presentation by Dr. Rachel Campbell

Known throughout history as the Morning Star, the Evening Star and named after the Roman Goddess of love and beauty, Venus has so much in common with the Earth that it is often called its "sister" or "twin".

Posted at 14:28