Van Vleck Observatory Celebrates Centennial with Exhibition, Event Series

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…

Two faculty members and three students have been awarded grants in the latest call for proposals from NASA's Connecticut Space Grant Consortium. Jim Greenwood, assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences, and Bill Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy, professor of integrative sciences, were awarded $8,000 for a Faculty Collaboration Grant titled “Chondrule Formation Experiments.” This is to run high-temperature experiments on material that makes up meteorites in order to test a hypothesis that they put forward in a recent paper in Icarus this year. Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy, associate professor of integrative sciences, was awarded $1,500 for a STEM Education…

Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy, and Marshall Johnson '11 are the co-authors of an article titled "The Interstellar Medium in the Kepler Search Volume," published in The Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 802, No. 2, July 2015. The article highlights ways scientists are studying the gas and dust in the galaxy near where the Kepler Space Telescope is discovering exoplanets. "Stars, with planets, can interact with the gas surrounding them in interesting ways, like bubbles in a drink, where each of the bubbles is an individual star (perhaps with planets) and the drink is the 'interstellar medium', the gas in between the stars," Redfield explained. In…

Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy, and Wilson Cauley, postdoctoral researcher in astronomy, led the effort on a paper titled "Optical hydrogen absorption consistent with a thin bow shock leading the hot Jupiter HD 189733b" accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. Bow shocks are ubiquitous astrophysical phenomena resulting from the supersonic passage of an object through a gas. In this paper, the authors present a robust detection of a time-resolved pre-transit, as well as in-transit, absorption signature around the hot Jupiter exoplanet HD 189733b using high spectral resolution observations of several hydrogen lines. Better knowledge of exoplanet magnetic field strengths is…

In its most recent meeting, the Board of Trustees promoted seven faculty members. The BOT conferred tenure on Lauren Caldwell, associate professor of classical studies; Stephen Collins, associate professor of film studies; Paul Erickson, associate professor of history; Matthew Garrett, associate professor of English; Brian Northrop, associate professor of chemistry; Julia Randall, associate professor of art; and Seth Redfield, associate professor of astronomy. The promotions are effective July 1, 2015. Brief descriptions of their areas of research and teaching appear below. Lauren Caldwell Caldwell’s research focuses on Roman social history, Roman law, and Greco-Roman medicine. Her recent book, Roman Girlhood and the Fashioning of Femininity (Cambridge University Press,…

With his Wesleyan undergraduate and graduate students, Assistant Professor of Astronomy Seth Redfield studies exoplanets, the local interstellar medium, and stellar and exoplanetary atmospheres. He talks about the unique opportunity offered through his exoplanet program at Wesleyan, in which students at the undergraduate level participate in cutting-edge research. [youtube]http://youtu.be/PNP5Cgc10go[/youtube] #THISISWHY

Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, spoke with Patrick Skahill and WNPR News on Nov. 15 about the sun flipping its magnetic polarity, which only happens every 11 years. While the change in polarity is not fully understood by scientists, the event is exciting “because this is kind of a probe into the internal workings of the sun, which is actually really hard for us to get a handle on,” according to Redfield. This solar cycle, Cycle 24, has not been disruptive to satellites or the electric grid, which can react negatively to solar radiation. The sun’s northern hemisphere flipped…

On Sept. 24, NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day featured a figure that Assistant Professor of Astronomy Seth Redfield generated as part of his research on the interstellar medium, the gas and dust surrounding the Sun and other nearby stars. Each day, NASA features a different image or photograph of the universe, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. The explanation of the figure states: “The stars are not alone. In the disk of our Milky Way Galaxy about 10 percent of visible matter is in the form of gas, called the interstellar medium (ISM). The ISM is not…

Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, won a three-year grant for $341,039 from the National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants program to fund his research on "Accessing Atmospheric Properties of Terrestrial Exoplanets: Ground-Based Observations of Rayleigh Scattering and Extended Atmospheres.” The grant was awarded in August 2013.

Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, and Katy Wyman MA '11, recently co-authored a paper that will appear in the Aug. 10 Astrophysical Journal, detailing several hundred spectral line measurements out to bright stars within 326 light years of our sun. Wyman is now employed at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The study also appeared in the July 28 edition of Forbes in an article titled "Looking In The Sun's Rear-View Mirror: A New Map Of The Local Interstellar Medium." The first comprehensive map of the local interstellar medium — the gas drifting between the nearest stars — "will not only help theorists…

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Seth Redfield, assistant professor of astronomy, spoke on "Properties of the Interstellar Medium Surrounding the Sun and Nearby Stars" during a conference held March 11-15 in the Physikzentrum in Bad Honnef, Germany. The conference, which was 527th in a series, was sponsored by the Wilhelm und Else Heraeus Stiftung, a German foundation that supports scientific research and education. The topic of the conference was "Plasma and Radiation Environment in Astrospheres and Implications for the Habitability of Extrasolar Planets."

Van Vleck Observatory Celebrates Centennial with Exhibition, Event Series

Faculty, Students Win Research Support from NASA’s CT Space Grant Consortium

Study by Redfield, Johnson ’11 Published in Astrophysical Journal, New Scientist

Bow Shock Study by Redfield, Cauley Published in Astrophysical Journal

7 Faculty Promoted, Awarded Tenure

Redfield on Exoplanets and the Local Interstellar Medium

Redfield Speaks about Magnetic Polarity Flipping on WNPR

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day Features Redfield’s Interstellar Medium

Redfield Receives NSF Grant for Exoplanet Atmosphere Research

Study by Redfield, Wyman MA ’11 Published in Astrophysical Journal, Forbes

Astronomers Discuss Exoplanet Research at Meeting, Picnic

Redfield Invited Speaker at Extrasolar Planets Conference in Germany