Olivia Drake(more…)
Andrew Logan ’18A group of Wesleyan faculty, students and alumni attended the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodland, Texas March 20-24. The annual conference unites 2,000 international specialists in petrology, geochemistry, geophysics, geology and astronomy to present their latest research in planetary science over the course of several days. Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the George I. Seney Professor of Geology Martha Gilmore coordinated Wesleyan's group. While at the event, she presented her work on the oldest rocks on Venus and Mars gully analogues on Earth. A number of her current graduate and undergraduate students attended and several…
Lauren RubensteinWesleyan Associate Professor of Astronomy Seth Redfield and astronomy student Julia Zachary '17 recently reported at the 229th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on their research using data from the Hubble Space Telescope combined with two Voyager spacecraft probes, both very long-lived and successful NASA missions. The findings were shared in dozens of news outlets from the U.S. to India to Afghanistan. According to Nature.com, "The work is a rare marriage of two of the most famous space missions — and an unprecedented glimpse at the realm between the stars." “If the Voyager spacecraft and the Google Street View car are going…
Four Wesleyan undergraduate students have received grants from NASA's Connecticut Space Grant Consortium. Astronomy major Hannah Fritze '18 was awarded $5,000 for an Undergraduate Research Fellowship Grant titled, “Searching for Intermediate Mass Black Holes in Ultraluminous X-ray Binaries.” This grant will support her research this coming semester on black holes with Roy Kilgard, support astronomer and research associate professor of astronomy. Avi Stein '17, who is majoring in astronomy, was awarded $1,000 for a Student Travel Grant. He will be presenting his research on Venus—conducted with Martha Gilmore, the George I. Seney Professor of Geology, professor of earth and environmental sciences—at…
The Hartford Courant featured the 100th anniversary of Wesleyan's Van Vleck Observatory, which will be celebrated with an exhibit and a series of events this month and next. The "Under Connecticut Skies" exhibit, located in the observatory library, will open May 6 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and will remain open indefinitely during the observatory's public hours. Amrys Williams, visiting assistant professor of history, who has been working on the exhibit since last year, said the Van Vleck Observatory and the astronomy department building are part of the exhibit, telling the story of how astronomers did their work 100 years ago.…
Wesleyan's Van Vleck Observatory is celebrating its centennial this spring, with a series of events and an exhibition beginning in early May. On May 6, the observatory's library will reopen to the public with an exhibition on the history of astronomy at Van Vleck. Developed by a team of faculty, students, and staff, the exhibition will use the observatory's extensive collection of scientific instruments, teaching materials, photographs, drawings, and correspondence to illustrate both the changes in astronomical research and teaching over the past century, and the observatory's consistent mission of conducting instruction and research under the same roof. The exhibition will…
The 26th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium of the Keck Northeast Astronomy Consortium (KNAC) was held at Williams College on Oct. 17. Five students presented results of their summer research: Julian Dann '17, Aylin Garcia Soto '18, and Girish Duvvuri '17 delivered oral presentations while Rachel Aronow '17 and Avi Stein '17 presented a poster. Several other students came along to enjoy the weekend, which featured a dinner and social event on Friday night, the seminar on Saturday and breakout sessions on such topics as Inclusive Astronomy and how/why to program in Python. More than 100 students and faculty from KNAC attended the event (pictured…
Wesleyan's Women in Science (WIS) gathered at the Van Vleck Observatory on Oct. 8 for "Starry Night," an evening of stargazing, conversation and hot chocolate. Participants used the Astronomy Department's 16-inch Fiducia telescope to view the night sky. (Photos by Ryan Heffernan '16) (more…)
Astronomy magazine has an in-depth feature in its October issue on Wesleyan's astronomical history and the restoration of its century-old, 20-inch refractor telescope, just in time for the Van Vleck Observatory's centennial observation this spring. Telescopes like Wesleyan's 28-foot-long, two-ton refractor had once been cutting edge, and a source of pride for dozens of American universities. But as they "staggered into obsolescence" over the past half century, institutions have had to make tough choices about whether to renovate or retire them. In 2014, Wesleyan hired Chris Ray and Fred Orthlieb of Pennsylvania to give its refractor a second life. The story traces the history…
Astronomers at Wesleyan have detected shock waves produced by a high-speed "hot Jupiter" exoplanet caught in a tight orbit around its host star, io9 reported. The story explains: It’s a potential indication of an incredibly powerful magnetic field around the planet. Also known as “roaster planets,” hot Jupiters are so named because they have many characteristics in common with the largest gas giant in our solar system, most notably mass. But they have much hotter surface temperatures because they orbit much closer to their parent stars. Researcher in Astronomy Wilson Cauley has published a new study on the topic in the Astrophysical Journal. io9 quotes Cauley's…