National Astronomy Day

Get an up-close and personal look at the sun — without injuring your eyes. Build a rocket and watch it blast off. Walk from Earth to the moon. Explore an invisible universe. Make a scale model solar system. Tour the current night sky. It’s all at National Astronomy Day at the Science Museum of Virginia […]

May 5, 2008; 8:33 PM • by FTRea

Get an up-close and personal look at the sun — without injuring your eyes. Build a rocket and watch it blast off. Walk from Earth to the moon. Explore an invisible universe. Make a scale model solar system. Tour the current night sky. It’s all at National Astronomy Day at the Science Museum of Virginia Saturday, May 10, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Come back in the evening for a special Sky Watch 8:30-10 p.m.

Create a bottle rocket and watch it take off on the Science Museum front lawn, weather permitting. Look safely at the sun through telescopes equipped with solar filters, weather permitting. Walk from Earth to the moon and back. It only takes a minute or so. The moon and Earth are 250 feet from each other at the Mary Morton Parsons Earth-Moon Sculpture. In this gigantic scale model of the Earth-moon system, Earth is a 29-ton kugel or floating ball sculpture etched with continents, rivers and oceans. Follow a red brick path across the driveway to a smaller moon floating ball sculpture in front of the Ethyl IMAX®DOME. How big would a solar system be if Earth were the size of the Grand Kugel? Find out at the Astronomy Day welcome table.

Make a sundial to take home. Stop by a telescope mirror grinding demonstration. See Russ Hummel walking around in a spacesuit? Ask him how spacesuits were developed. Touch a meteorite from Arizona . Check out a camera chip that is used in night sky photography. Explore Space Travels.

Find out about the big-bang theory when University of Richmond Physics Assistant Professor Ted Bunn presents Listening to the Big Bang at 10 a.m. What astronomy research is going on at Randolph-Macon College ? Dr. George Spagna fills you in at 10:30 a.m. when he presents Undergraduate Astronomy Research at Randolph-Macon College.

Make a large scale model solar system at an 11 a.m. or 2 p.m. Scale Model Solar System Workshop. Space is limited. Sign up for a workshop in the greeting area.

Discover radio astronomy at 11 a.m. when National Radio Astronomy Observatory Education & Public Outreach Assistant Director Dr. Mark Adams presents Exploring the Invisible Universe with Radio Astronomy. Look to the future in astronomy at 11:30 a.m. when Space Telescope Science Institute Astronomy Outreach Consultant John Stoke presents Coming This Fall: The New Hubble Space Telescope.

Tour the current night sky in Starlab Planetarium Programs at noon, 1, 2 and 3 p.m. Space is limited. Folks are let in on a first-come, first-served basis. At noon, University of Virginia Astronomy Professor Dr. Mike Skrutskie presents The Search for Other Earths.

At 12:30 p.m. Space Science Institute Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations Mission Planner and Research Associate Dr. Anne Verbiscer presents The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini. Catch her again at 1 p.m. when she introduces the planetarium show Icy Worlds. At 4 p.m. see the planetarium show What’s Up? Night Sky Observations. If all these events make you yearn for your own telescope, fill out an entry form for a drawing to give away a telescope donated by Celestron.

Want to test your astronaut skills? Visit the Science Museum ’s permanent exhibit Newton in Space. Floating on air looks easy, but try docking an Air Chair. It’s easier said than done. Try out a Gyroscope Chair. How hard is it to point the chair in the direction you really want to go?

In the evening, join members of the Richmond Astronomical Society on the museum’s front lawn for Sky Watch, 8:30-10 p.m., weather permitting.

National Astronomy Day is sponsored by the Science Museum of Virginia and the Richmond Astronomical Society.

National Astronomy Day and Sky Watch are free events. Newton in Space exhibits are included with Science Museum exhibit admission. Exhibit tickets are $9 for youth ages 4-12, seniors 60+ and active military and $10 for adults.

For recorded, 24-hour sky information, call 804-864-1400 or 800-659-1727 or visit the museum’s web site. The Science Museum is located at 2500 West Broad Street.

– The information above was provided by Nancy Tait, Public Relations Manager Science Museum of Virginia

May 5, 2008 8:33 PM 0