October 16-17, 2009

University of New Hampshire

Durham, NH

BANQUET SPEAKER

After 400 years, some of us still get it wrong: Science Errors on TV
(A Personal Experience)

Prof. Neil F. Comins (University of Maine)

We all know that students come to our classes with misconceptions (deep-seated incorrect beliefs) about our astronomical environment.  While some of these beliefs have their origins in faulty reasoning, many others come from external sources, such as from scientists harboring and sharing the same misconceptions, and from media sources.   Neil will share a horror story of how scientists on a TV show  about the Moon in which he appeared presented incorrect information and how the producers also manipulated the science presented by the narrator to provide incorrect information that viewers are likely to incorporate into their own belief system.

Prof. Comins and his students do research in a variety of fields, including general relativity, optical and radio observational astronomy, computer simulations of galaxies, and astronomy education.  His work in GR was cited in Chandrasekhar’s Nobel Prize lecture.  He is the author of 14 text and trade books (the latest one, “What if the Earth Had Two Moons?” will be out next January).  One his greatest non-scientific achievements is becoming a cartoon character in Japan.

PLENARY SPEAKERS

Professor Galileo’s 21st Century Syllabus

Prof. Timothy Slater (University of Wyoming)

Precisely four hundred years ago, Italian scientist Galileo’s observations of the heavens forever and profoundly altered the way we view our place in the Universe.  Among many influential observations he made with the newly invented telescope, he observed that our Moon’s surface is not smooth, but covered with countless impact craters.  He was the first to measure our Sun’s rotation by monitoring sunspots, he demonstrated that the planets orbit our Sun by observing that the planet Venus shows Moon-like phases he recorded four moons orbiting the planet Jupiter once and for all disproving the widespread notion that Earth was the center of all celestial motions, and he dramatically increased our thinking about the size of the known Universe discovering that there thousands of more stars than had ever been thought to exist before.  Taken together, Galileo and his telescope initiated one of the most important scientific revolutions in history, but what would he choose to teach if he were alive today?

Professors Tim and Stephanie Slater run the inter-college Cognition in Astronomy, Physics and Earth Sciences Research (CAPER) Team at the University of Wyoming.  Tim is the University of Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Chair in Science Education and the Education Officer for the American Astronomical Society.  Stephanie is the University of Wyoming Outreach Professor for the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center.  They have a national reputation as innovators in applying astronomy education research to learning environments and serve on numerous high profile committees and boards, are widely published, and popular speakers on science education and teacher education at national conferences.  Information on their unique MS & Ph.D. programs can be found at:  http://www.uwyo.edu/caper

The Oscillating History in the Exploration of the Red Planet

Suzanne M. M. Young (Phoenix Mission Science Plan Integrator)

The oldest, and very vague, map of Mars was drawn in 1659 by Christiaan Huygens, who like Galileo, was pointing his telescopes to nearly anything the sky presented him. In the 1700s, William Herschel, followed by Johann Hieronymus Schroeter, observed Mars extensively and attempted to map its features. In the mid-1800s, Warren De la Rue refined the features on maps of Mars enough to first display, unknowingly, the north and south polar glaciers of Mars. In 1877 Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli observed a dense network of linear structures on the surface of Mars which he called "canali" (Italian: meaning "channels", but mistranslated as "canals").  Schiaparelli also named the "seas" and "continents" of Mars.  With canals and seas, massive speculation began about water and life on Mars, perhaps even a civilization responsible for the canals (and, one might hope, with gondolas and singing gondoliers).  Percival Lowell was captivated by the implications of these purported canals and spent much of his life trying to prove the existence of intelligent life on the red planet in the early 1900s. On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles broadcast on radio an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel “War of the Worlds”.  This caused some listeners to panic.  The assumption that Martians were benevolent was severely dented.  With NASA’s early exploration of Mars -  Mariner Missions in the 1960s, and the Viking Missions in the 1970s - Mars was returned to a desolated place, although it now seems possible that the Viking landers were literally inches away from discovering water ice on Mars, finally encountered in abundance over 30 years later by the Phoenix Mission.  With the detection of water by the Odyssey Orbiter, geological evidence for ancient water found by the Rovers, the highest resolution images ever taken of Mars by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the most recent discoveries by the Phoenix Lander, theories have almost come full circle in returning Mars to a place with water, and possibly microbial (presumably unintelligent) life. The Phoenix Mars Scout landed on 25 May 2008 at the northern polar latitude of 68°N. Analyses included excavating the Mars regolith with a robotic arm and delivering samples to payload instruments including a scanning calorimeter-mass spectrometer (TEGA) and an electrochemical analyzer, (WCL). The work reported here addresses the implications of the Phoenix observations for the prospects of Mars biohability. TEGA confirmed the presence of water ice in the regolith, not bound as a chemical ligand. The salts by WCL offer evidence for the presence in the past of liquid water on Mars.  Sources of bio-energy, key bio-elements and ions, and environmental toxicity and pH will also be discussed with our current understanding of the red planet.

Dr. Suzanne M. M. Young is a member of the Phoenix Lander Science Team.  In recent years, she has been associated with both Tufts University and the University of New Hampshire.  She currently works from her home in Durham, NH.

Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope: First Year Highlights

Dr. David J. Thompson  (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, formerly called GLAST, recently completed its first year of surveying the high-energy sky.  Some key observations include: (1) Gamma-rays from pulsars appear to come from a region well above the surface of the neutron star; (2) Multiwavelength studies of blazars show that simple models of jet emission are not always adequate to explain what is seen; (3) Gamma-ray bursts can exhibit strong emission at high energies even from distant bursts; (4) Cosmic-ray electrons at energies approaching 1 TeV seem to suggest a local source for some of these particles.

Dr. Thompson is Deputy Project Scientist for the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope Mission. His research spans all areas of astrophysics related to high-energy gamma rays. Prior to his work on the Fermi mission, Thompson was involved with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the second of NASA’s Great Observatories, which operated in orbit from 1991-2000.

Imaging the Interstellar Wind and the Boundary of the Heliosphere
in the “Light” of Neutral Atoms using the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX)

Prof. Eberhard Möbius (University of New Hampshire)

On October 19, 2008, the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) has been launched, which carries two highly sensitive Energetic Neutral Atom (ENA) cameras that are taking the first global images of the heliosphere’s interaction with the surrounding interstellar medium, hence opening another window for astrophysics. Because the Sun moves relative to the local interstellar cloud at ≈26 km/s, an interstellar wind of neutral gas blows through our solar system, thus forming a point source on the ENA image. In spite of the large size of the heliosphere we can study this flow for H, He, and O directly near Earth. At a distance of about 100 AU the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed through interaction with the interstellar gas, thus forming the termination shock. Here ions are accelerated efficiently. Through charge exchange with interstellar gas atoms these ions are a diffuse source of ENAs.  The neutrals - if released towards the Earth – arrive on straight trajectories, carrying information about the energy spectra and spatial distribution of the ion populations in the boundary regions. From the interstellar flow through the inner heliosphere and the image of the boundary ENAs, we glean complementary insight into the exciting observations that the two Voyagers have returned from their recent passage through termination shock, i.e. a distinct asymmetry of the heliosphere and the fact that, contrary to theoretical predictions, the source of anomalous cosmic rays has not yet been found at the termination shock. IBEX is fully operational and has taken its first full-sky image. As a bonus, IBEX has also detected neutral atoms from the Moon that have allowed us to determine the Moon’s albedo for solar wind impinging on its surface.

Professor Möbius, currently serving as chairman of the UNH Physics Department, is also a member of the IBEX team.

Galileo’s Ideas Might Have Been Better Received If He Understood Cognitive Science

Dr. Stephanie Slater (University of Wyoming)

Over the years, considerable rhetoric exists regarding which instructional strategies induce the largest conceptual and attitude gains in helping K-12, college students, and the general public learn science. In response, the Cognition in Astronomy, Physics and Earth Sciences Research (CAPER) Team at the University of Wyoming is conducting a systematic study of how people learn science through astronomy.  By uncovering cognitive processes, including misapplied phenomenological primitives and spatial reasoning strategies, the CAPER Team is developing and testing a series of innovative classroom instructional materials constructed upon a highly scaffolded approach grounded in inquiry-instruction that has applications across many scientific disciplines.

Professors Tim and Stephanie Slater run the inter-college Cognition in Astronomy, Physics and Earth Sciences Research (CAPER) Team at the University of Wyoming.  Tim is the University of Wyoming Excellence in Higher Education Endowed Chair in Science Education and the Education Officer for the American Astronomical Society.  Stephanie is the University of Wyoming Outreach Professor for the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center.  They have a national reputation as innovators in applying astronomy education research to learning environments and serve on numerous high profile committees and boards, are widely published, and popular speakers on science education and teacher education at national conferences.  Information on their unique MS & Ph.D. programs can be found at:  http://www.uwyo.edu/caper

NASA's Kepler Mission: A Search for Habitable Planets

Dr. Andrea Dupree, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The Kepler Mission, launched in March of this year, is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets. Results from this mission will allow us to place our solar system within the continuum of planetary systems in the Galaxy.

Andrea Dupree is a member of the Science Team on Kepler, and an expert in the study of cool stars using spectroscopic techniques.  She is a Past-President of the American Astronomical Society and has served on and led many committees of the US National Academy of Sciences, NASA, and others to determine the future course of astronomical research in the United States and other countries. She held the position of Associate Director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics - the first woman and youngest person in that position and served as Head of the Solar, Stellar and Planetary Sciences Division.

Invited Speakers

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