News

SHAPLEY LECTURER WILL SPEAK AT TWO GTCC ASTRONOMY EVENTS

JAMESTOWN - Dr. Terry Oswalt, head of the Physics and Space Sciences Dept. at

Florida Institute of Technology, will be the featured speaker at two major astronomy events at GTCC on Friday, March 2, and Saturday, March 3.
Both events are free of charge and open to the public.

Oswalt will be guest for the public Shapley Lecture at 7 p.m. Friday in the auditorium of the Sears Applied Technologies Center. He also will headline the annual spring Triad Starfest astronomy festival when he speaks at 11 a.m. on Saturday in the Sears auditorium.

These lectures are part of GTCC's annual festival of astronomy, the Triad StarFest (TriStar for short).  They are made possible by Cline Observatory, the GTCC Foundation, the Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturer Program of the American Astronomical Society, and the Greensboro Astronomy Club.

The Triad Starfest is a gathering of astronomers of all types, from novice to professional, for a full day of presentations, displays, and observing. The event allows astronomy enthusiasts to share ideas, learn about a range of astronomical topics, get together with old friends, and make new ones. The event will draw astronomers from North Carolina and surrounding states
Oswalt's topics:

•    Friday - "It's Later than You Think: How Astronomers Measure the Age of the Universe."
•    Saturday -"Chicken Little Was Right, The Sky Is Falling."

Other TriStar speakers:
•    Dr. Brad N. Barlow, Penn State University, "Starquakes!  Probing Stellar Evolution using Asteroseismology," 3:30 p.m.
•    Tom English, Director of GTCC's Cline Observatory, "Historical Mars Oppositions," 9:30 a.m.
•    A series of short presentations and workshops will be held from 2-3 p.m.
Additional information about the Tristar schedule can be found at the event web site:  http://www.gtcc.edu/observatory/tristar.aspx .

Oswalt, founding chairman of the Southeast Association for Research in Astronomy, points out in "It's Later than You Think" that the Universe is 13.7 billion years old. "We know this age to better than five percent uncertainty. It's pretty amazing that such an enormous age, spanning vastly more time than human beings have existed can even be measured.

"The Hubble Space Telescope was designed to specifically to determine that age of the Universe. As it turned out, ground-based techniques played an even more important role in pinning down this number."

In this talk, Oswalt will discuss how astronomers measure ages of astronomical objects in general, and how the search for the age of the Universe led to the discovery of first dark matter, and then dark energy.

In "The Sky IS Falling," it will be pointed out that asteroids and comets may preserve the only records of the physical and chemical processes which marked the beginning of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago. Most asteroids revolve about the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter and are believed to be the rocky remnants of the minor bodies from which all planets accrete.

Comets are bodies that come from far outside the orbit of Pluto, in a dark realm called the Oort Cloud, a large icy debris zone which surrounds the Sun. Over the last decade, the risk of impacts from comets and asteroids has been recognized as substantial and a number of research programs have been undertaken to find and categorize the most dangerous Near Earth Objects (NEOs).
Oswalt will discuss how NEOs are found, the way impact risks are assessed, what the effects of an impact can be, and how the human species might respond to the threat of a major impact.

For over 25 years Oswalt has been a Harlow Shapley lecturer and served on many committees for the American Astronomical Society. He has been a program officer for Stellar Astronomy & Astrophysics at the National Science Foundation and editor of the I.A.P.P.P. Communications, an international journal for advanced amateurs, students, teachers and professionals who collaborate on research and educational projects in astronomy.

Oswalt has written almost 200 scientific articles and has edited three astronomy books. He is editing a six-volume series of astronomy reference books.
For more information, contact Tom English, astronomy professor and director of Cline Observatory, at trengglish@gtcc.edu or at 334-4822, Ext. 50023.
In case inclement weather causes the Jamestown Campus of GTCC to be closed on the date of Tri*Star, please monitor campus status before coming to GTCC. Information is available at the GTCC web page or by dialing the GTCC switchboard at 336-334-4822.
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Contact: ROBurchette@gtcc.edu                                              (Released 2/21/12)