Interested in the big questions about the cosmos? 

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!.

SCHEDULE Spring 2013

DATE	Speaker	Title
February 6th	Val Germann (CMAA)	Telescopes, Optics and the Renovation of the Laws Observatory 16-inch 'Scope
March 6th	Lanika Ruzhitskaya (Physics & Astronomy)	Women in Astronomy
April 3rd	Mike Urban (Geography)	Global Warming, Climate Change, and Impacts on the US
May 1st	Matt Connolly (Physics & Astronomy) & Tom Zhang (Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering)	IGERT Neutron Scattering Talks

If you would like to see an example of what these talks are like,
here is Angela Speck talking about Pluto's Demise and Resurrection

And another where she is taking about Why Astrology is Nonsense

More videos will be available soon!

Past talks

David Arrant	A Tour through the constellations Saturn: Lord of the Rings
Sean Baldridge	The Elusive Neutrino
Michael Barnes	Dog Stars and Divine Hunters: Heavenly Bodies in Early Greek Poetry and Myth.
Larry Brown	Cosmic Reflections on the Cultural Landscape
Dan Caputo	Spaghettification, and other ways the universe is trying to kill you.
Caitlin Casey	20th Century Telescopes: The Race to the Edge of the Universe
Signe Cohen	The Infinite Order: Religion and Astronomy in Ancient India.
Adrian Corman	Lives & Deaths of Stars
Nelson De Souza	One Small Step: Building The Distance Ladder
Cori Fletcher	The History of Radio Astronomy
Val Germann	Rooftop Sky Tour What's Up: the night sky for the Winter/Spring semester Telescopes: How they work and what you can see with them
Rainer Glaser	Prebiotic synthesis of biological molecules in interstellar space
Linda Godwin	Exploring Space from Low Earth Orbit: Where to we go from here?
Suklima Guha Niyogi	The Lives of Stars
Aaron Kaberline	Habitable Exoplanets and the Goldilocks Zone
Craig Kleuver	A Personal History of NASA Projects
Phil Knocke	Curiosity and Spirit: Missions to Mars
Harrison Knoll	Will you explode in space and other movie myths
Melanie Koehler	The Orion Nebula
ShunLin Liang	The Sun, Our Star
Ken MacLeod	It Came from Outer Space: Recent controversies regarding the K/T boundary
Bahram Mashhoon	The fate of the universe
Arielle Newgard	Islam and the Moon
Rita Reed	Night-time Photography
Mark Smith	Was Galileo Really a Martyr for Scientific Truth?
Angela Speck	Planetary Nebulae - beauty in stellar death Are we really gonna die? Myths about the end of the world and the Mayans have to do with it Pluto's Demise and Resurrection Nuclear processes in the cosmos Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Moon, But Were Afraid to Ask The rabbit in the moon and other lunar myths Why Astrology is Nonsense
Josh Tartar	Dust, Dirt and Debris in the Solar System
Carsten Ullrich	Anthropic principle and multiverses
Todd vanPool	Man and Woman Circle the Hearth: Archaeoastronomy in the American Southwest
Giovanni Vignale	The Distance of the Moon: A physicist's improvisation on the Earth-Moon system, love, and the laws of physics
Mark Volkmann	Is the moon made of cheese? Misconceptions in Astronomy
Alan Whittington	Armageddon: Meteorite Impacts Mars!
Haojin Yan	HST, JWST and why they are important

speckan@missouri.edu

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