Meetings

Have you ever wondered why most of the visible star names are Arabic ones? How Arabic astronomical concepts like the Azimuth or the Astrolabe came to be key ones in medieval astronomy? While most people are familiar with the Ancient Greek or Renaissance astronomy, most people don’t recognize the vast contributions of the Islamic civilization to astronomy for a millennia. Ahmed Reda, programs coordinator for the Minnesota Astronomical Society, will present, via Zoom, some of the aspects of medieval Islamic astronomy, how it preserved the ancient knowledge, and lead a golden age of astronomy.

If an alien civilization sent a message, could we receive, decode, interpret, and understand it? Science fiction authors have imagined many kinds of messages: understandable to incomprehensible, benign to dangerous.
Daniela de Paulis, Artist-in-Residence at the Green Bank Observatory and the SETI Institute, designed an actual message that was as alien as possible, then arranged to have it transmitted to Earth from a spacecraft orbiting Mars. Club member Dale Dellutri will describe her project and other aspects of alien messages.

Europa Clipper is NASA's largest-ever planetary spacecraft and it is on its way to the Jupiter system. Arriving in April 2030, the goal of this mission is to study Europa, one of the Galilean moons and one of our solar system's most interesting ocean worlds to find out whether this moon might host conditions that are suitable for life. Michelle Nichols, Director of Public Observing at the Adler Planetarium, will give an overview of this exciting mission and what scientists are hoping to learn from it.

Sophie de Saint Georges, Education Specialist at the Green Bank Observatory, will present, via Zoom, a virtual tour of the equipment and science at the observatory.

TBA

Club member Jim Kovac invites you to join the continuing exploration of the cosmos with the James Webb Space Telescope. We will discuss the progress to investigate the evolution of galaxies, the birth of stars and protoplanetary systems, and consider some discoveries awaiting explanation as JWST probes the early Universe.