From the August 2015 Desktop News | The groundbreaking space probe New Horizons has given astronomers a sharp new eye on one of the most remote bodies in our solar system, Pluto. This new source of information hasn’t gone unnoticed in the College’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, with many astronomers interested in understanding the distant dwarf planet and its peculiarities. “In our survey classes, Pluto is more than a blank placeholder — we now know about its history as a […]
Tag: astronomy
Ice Cube Astronomy
UA professor of astronomy Dawn Williams will share the wonders of Antarctica and the groundbreaking research done in the Ice Cube Neutrino Detector in a talk on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. in Room 227 Gallalee Hall before the public night. During a talk entitled “Ice Cube: The weirdest wonder of modern astronomy,” Williams will describe how this high-energy detector was built by melting ice and how the nearly massless particles called neutrinos give insights into violent astrophysical events. She […]
Astronomer Works to Change Public Perceptions of Science
Astronomy professor Dr. Bill Keel is a man with a mission. He’s heavily involved in the Galaxy Zoo Project, which encourages citizens around the world (with or without scientific experience) to evaluate photos taken by the Hubble Telescope. Galaxy Zoo is unique in that millions of people across the globe are encouraged to examine and even classify millions of galaxies. In 2007, Hanny’s Voorwep (an astronomical oddity roughly the size of the Milky Way) was discovered by novice astronomer Hanny […]
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