The University of Missouri-Columbia Department of Physics & Astronomy, in conjunction with the Central Missouri Astronomical Association , presents:

"Cosmic Conversations" is a lecture series hosted by the Department of Physics & Astronomy in conjunction with the Laws Observatory and the Central Missouri Astronomical Association. Scheduled at 7 pm the first Wednesday of each month in room 120 of the Physics building, the topic of each talk relates to the cosmos; why we see the Moon the way we do, how to take night-time photos, how meteors relate to global extinctions, how did early Native Americans see the sky and a host of other topics in which the heavens play a role.

The Laws Observatory will be open following each presentation for viewing of the night-time sky (weather permitting). In addition, the Stankowski Field lights will be switched off to improve the view!.

This year is the International Year of Astronomy:
   

SCHEDULE 2009

DATE	NASA IYA2009 Topic	NASA IYA2009 Object	Speaker	Title
February 4th	Our Solar System	The Moon	Angela Speck (Physics & Astronomy)	The rabbit in the moon and other lunar myths
March 4th	Observing at night	Saturn	David Arrant (Physics & Astronomy)	Saturn: Lord of the Rings
April 1st	Galaxies and the Distant Universe	The Whirlpool Galaxy	Rita Reed (School of Jounralism)	Night-time Photography
May 6th	Our sun	The Sun	ShunLin Liang	The Sun, Our Star
June 3rd	Clusters of Stars	The Hercules Cluster	B. Menzi Mchunu (Physics & Astronomy)	What do we learn from star clusters?
July 1st	Black Holes	Our Galaxy: the Milky Way	Dan Caputo (Physics & Astronomy)	Spaghettification, and other ways the universe is trying to kill you.
August 5th	Rocks & Ice in the Solar System	Perseids	Josh Tartar (Physics & Astronomy)	Dust, Dirt and Debris in the Solar System
September 2nd	Planets & Moons	Jupiter	Signe Cohen (Religious Studies)	The Infinite Order: Religion and Astronomy in Ancient India.
October 7th	What is the Fate of the Universe?	Andromeda	Bahram Mashhoon (Physics & Astronomy)	The fate of the universe
November 4th	The Lives of Stars	The Crab Nebula	Suklima Guha Niyogi (Physics & Astronomy)	The Lives of Stars
December 2nd	Discovering New Worlds	The Orion Nebula	Melanie Koehler	The Orion Nebula

Past talks

Craig Kluever	A Personal History of NASA Projects
Adrian Corman	Lives & Deaths of Stars
Ken MacLeod	It Came from Outer Space: Recent controversies regarding the K/T boundary
Larry Brown	Cosmic Reflections on the Cultural Landscape
David Arrant	Saturn: Lord of the Rings
Angela Speck	Nuclear processes in the cosmos
Alan Whittington	Mars!
Rainer Glaser	Prebiotic synthesis of biological molecules in interstellar space
Mark Volkmann	Is the moon made of cheese? Misconceptions in Astronomy
Angela Speck	Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Moon, But Were Afraid to Ask
Todd vanPool	Man and Woman Circle the Hearth: Archaeoastronomy in the American Southwest
Val Germann	Telescopes: How they work and what you can see with them

speckan@missouri.edu

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