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Kepler, TESS, and Keck Observatory – Driving Our Understanding of Exoplanetary Systems
05:00 pm - 06:00 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: David Ciardi, Chief Scientist, NASA Exoplanet Science Institute VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Launched in 2009, NASA’s Kepler revolutionized our understanding of other worlds by discovering thousands of exoplanet systems. 10 years after Kepler ended, NASA launched TESS to continue the revolution by finding planets around brighter, nearby stars. Ground-based telescopes have been critical to […]
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A Night in the Life of Keck Observatory
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: John O’Meara, Chief Scientist, W. M. Keck Observatory VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: You’ve seen the discoveries, but how are they made? In this presentation, we follow the process of Keck Observatory’s science, from proposal to publication. Along the way, we’ll learn how our Hawaii staff prepares the Keck I and Keck II telescopes, configures […]
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Dwarf Galaxies, Dark Matter, and the Milky Way
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Marla Geha, Director, Yale Telescope Resources, Professor, Astronomy Department, Yale University VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Dozens of small galaxies have been discovered orbiting our Milky Way galaxy over the past decade. These “ultra-faint” galaxies are less luminous than any other known galaxy, and are several million times fainter than the Milky Way itself. W. […]
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Virtual Film Premiere: “Beyond the Impossible”
05:00 pm - 06:00 pm
W. M. Keck Observatory invites you to a virtual screening of “Beyond the Impossible.” This short film is a sequel to “The Impossible Telescope,” a documentary released last year commemorating the legacy of Jerry Nelson, known as the “Father of the Keck Observatory Telescopes,” who pioneered the 10-meter segmented design of the primary mirrors that […]
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Hunting for the Most Distant Galaxies in the Universe
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Taylor Hutchison, Graduate Student, Texas A&M University VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: We understand very little about the first galaxies in the universe whose light has traveled over 12 billion years to reach our telescopes. The early universe was a much darker place, filled with neutral gas blocking starlight from traveling far from its source. […]
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A Planet Not Our Own
05:00 pm - 06:00 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Elizabeth Tasker, Associate Professor, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Institute of Space and Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: We thought we understood the planets of our solar system until we discovered new worlds beyond our own Sun – planets the size of Jupiter with orbits completed in an Earth day, planets with […]
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Keck Observatory and the Ongoing Exoplanet Revolution
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Chas Beichman, Executive Director, NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: The exoplanet revolution began in 1995 with the Nobel-Prize winning discovery of a “Hot Jupiter” orbiting the sun-like star 51 Pegasi. Thousands of planets have since been detected in the succeeding two decades, many of them either found by or validated […]
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Illuminating the Origins of the Universe’s Fastest Explosions
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Wen-fai Fong, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Join us as Wen-fai Fong describes the universe’s fastest explosions. When we look at the night sky, we see a static universe. However, astronomical observational surveys have revealed that our universe is, in fact, ever-changing. This “transient” sky […]
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Modern Astronomy on Maunakea: A 60-Year Story (1960-2020)
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Robert McLaren, Interim Director, University of Hawaiʻi, Institute for Astronomy VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK | Astronomy on Maunakea originated in community efforts to revive the Hawaiʻi Island economy following the 1960 tsunami that devastated Hilo. It quickly acquired governmental support, especially from Governor John Burns. The University of Hawaiʻi took a leading role, commissioning […]
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The NIRSPEC Upgrade for Keck Observatory: Enhancing observations from the solar system to exoplanets and beyond
05:00 pm - 06:30 pm
GUEST SPEAKER: Emily Martin, National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellow, University of California, Santa Cruz VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK | The NIRSPEC instrument upgrade was completed in December 2018, just in time to observe the fly-by of a near-Earth comet. Dr. Martin will discuss details of the NIRSPEC upgrade, from the new detectors and optics, […]
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