On the road: American Astronomical Society June meeting, Monday

Liz Kruesi — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:27:00 GMT

Monday was my first day at the 214th American Astronomical Society meeting. What I’ve already noticed is that it’s not as jam-packed with press events as the January meeting — which I like. (I have the time to check out the science presentations.)

Recent headlines from the AAS meeting:

I started out the morning by attending a talk about Saturn and Cassini, which served as a nice update on the mission. Then I went to a press conference about cosmology and the distance ladder. There were a few interesting findings about “ultra-long-period” Cepheid variable stars and also a type of gamma-ray burst.

After the press conference and for the rest of the day, I attended science presentations, the poster session, and wandered through the exhibit hall. There were some cool things in the exhibit hall!

Members from the Spitzer Space Telescope team were there — with an infrared (essentially, heat) camera. So I stood in front of it to see myself in infrared radiation. In the picture above, white is warmer than purple. Because my glasses sit away from my face, they’re so much cooler. It was really neat. (And I sure wasn’t the only one. There was a number of people standing in front of that camera taking pictures of themselves.)

Another interesting exhibit was the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) group. LISA, currently in the building stages, is supposed to detect gravitational waves. The group had a full-size replica of one of the spacecraft. LISA will have three of these spacecraft in a triangle, each separated by 3 million miles (5 million kilometers). The replica, while the same size as the real one, is actually heavier. It’s made of wood and steel, while the real LISA crafts will have aluminum and other lighter-weight materials. In the picture to the right you can see the scale of the craft — compared to 5-foot me.

Later in the evening, the Carnegie Institute held a reception for all. I went to that with former Astronomy magazine Senior Editor Frank Reddy. Frank’s now the senior science writer for the Astrophysics Science Division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The parking lot ground has a full-scale outline of the Giant Magellan Telescope primary mirror. That’s one large scope!

Now that I’ve checked out the exhibit hall, tomorrow I’ll stick with the science updates.

Related blogs:

AAS January 2009 meeting recaps

Astronomy.com blog : telescopes, astronomy magazine, conferences

On the road: American Astronomical Society June meeting, Monday