Events
Events
Upcoming

Intergalactic Immigration
05:00 pm - 07:00 pm
Guest Speaker Jessica Werk Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy University of Washington The majority of atoms in the Milky Way, including on our planet, did not originate within our own galaxy and were likely fused in stars from long-dead satellite galaxies. These atoms have been cycling over vast scales for billions of years, swept up […]
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Getting a Sharp Look at Dark Matter
05:00 pm - 07:00 pm
Guest Speaker Chris Fassnacht Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy University of California, Davis Look around you. Everything that is familiar to us, what we would call “normal” matter, makes up just a tiny fraction of what is out there. Instead, the universe is dominated by the dark side, and the question of what makes […]
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Searching for Distant Galaxies with Keck and JWST
05:00 pm - 07:00 pm
Guest Speaker Rebecca Larson NSF Fellow, Ph.D. Astronomy Student The University of Texas at Austin We’ll go on a journey of discovery that started with a small blip in Hubble images, became a fully-confirmed galaxy after Keck Observatory confirmed the (surprisingly bright) hydrogen signature, and is now a fully-characterized and incredibly interesting galaxy with JWST […]
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The Sound of Stars
05:00 pm - 07:00 pm
Guest Speaker Dan Huber Associate Astronomer University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy Although we cannot hear it with our own ears, the Sun and other stars in the sky have been performing a concert for billions of years. Similar to a boiling pot of water, gas cells on the surface of stars that are the […]
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2022 Waimea Solar System Walk
10:00 am - 02:00 pm
Take a Trip Through the Solar System! Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, W. M. Keck Observatory, and the Maunakea Observatories are bringing back a hybrid Waimea Solar System Walk for 2022. The walk launches on October 29th with an in-person event along Ala ʻŌhiʻa Road in Waimea from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and combines our favorite aspects […]
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2022 AstroDay West Hawaiʻi
10:00 am - 03:00 pm
BIG ISLAND SCIENCE & EDUCATIONAL FUN The community is invited to explore the amazing science happening here on Hawaiʻi Island during the annual AstroDay celebration on Saturday, Nov. 5, at Kona Commons Shopping Center in Kailua-Kona. Organized by the Mauna Kea Astronomy Outreach Committee (MKAOC), this free, family-friendly event offers entertaining and engaging STEM activities, […]
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Truth is Stranger than (Science) Fiction
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Jessie Christiansen, Astrophysicist, NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: We speculated about the existence of planets orbiting other Suns for hundreds, if not thousands of years before their existence was finally confirmed. During that time we invented and depicted many new and now iconic sci-fi worlds – mysterious planets with […]
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AstroDay in East Hawaiʻi Returns May 14
10:00 am - 04:00 pm
Celebrate Big Island Science & Astronomy The Maunakea Observatories’ AstroDay in Hilo is back—and this year, you can attend in person! This annual celebration of Hawaiʻi science and astronomy will feature hands-on activities, games, giveaways, and demonstrations for all ages. Our Keck Observatory staff will be giving away build-your-own spectrograph kits, an instrument astronomers use […]
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Origin of Earth’s Water
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Karen Meech, Astronomer, Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai`i at Manoa VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: No one knows if our solar system, with a planet possessing the necessary ingredients for life within our Sun’s habitable zone, is a cosmic rarity. Nor do we know whether the gas giants in our solar system played a […]
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Planetary Defense at NASA
05:00 pm - 07:00 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Kelly Fast and Lindley Johnson, Near-Earth Object Observations Program Manager and Planetary Defense Officer, NASA VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun like the planets, but with orbits that can bring them into Earth’s neighborhood. An asteroid impact is the only natural disaster that could be […]
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Exploring the Ice Giants with Keck Observatory and Other Telescopes
05:00 pm - 07:00 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Heidi Hammel, Vice President for Science, The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: During the late 1980s, our understanding of the local ice giants – Uranus and Neptune – was revolutionized by detailed images taken by the Voyager spacecraft. However, those images were static: brief snapshots in time […]
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