Tonight, we present…

Hubble Vision 2

An exploration of the ways in which the Hubble Space Telescope has helped us understand our universe. Lots of truly beautiful pictures!

The show begins at 7:30 PM. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children, and $10 for families of 3 or more people. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with identification.

I am late in posting this announcement because we have recently upgraded the site! Please keep an eye on this space for new content over the next few weeks.

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes & Public Events | No Comments »

Please pardon the long title, and the slight departure in subject matter.  As always, what I write here is my own, and does not reflect the policies or opinions of Lambuth University, my employer.

I am somewhat hesitant to publish this on the planetarium website, since it could be construed as unduly political, and whatever I say will be viewed through the lens of each reader’s political opinions.  However, as a planetarium director and a strong believer in science education for the general public, I find it hard to let Senator John McCain’s comments about “overhead projectors” slide.

During the second and third presidential debates, Senator McCain used the Adler Planetarium in Chicago as an example of government waste.  He derided the $3 million upgrade in their nearly 40-year-old equipment as replacing an “overhead projector”, denigrating and belittling the project.  The Adler Planetarium is the oldest planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, and receives about a half-million visitors each year, about 40% of whom are children.  Many of the visitors come from the Chicago metropolitan area, which like most urban areas in the country (including Jackson) is exceedingly light-polluted.  This means that many of the visitors are unable to see more than a handful of the brightest stars—even on a clear night—due to the excessive amount of artificial lights.

The M. D. Anderson Planetarium is a much smaller facility in all respects:  we have a smaller potential audience, a smaller facility, and a much smaller staff (to wit, one part-time employee who happens to be me).  However, we also recently replaced our old “overhead projector”, which was only two years older than the current projector at the Adler, with a new digital projector.  This was a major undertaking that cost us well over $20,000, required extensive rewiring, and the development of all new programming.  I can only imagine what it must cost to run a planetarium as large as the Adler, in terms of both money and energy.

Continue Reading »

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes | No Comments »

Earth obviously has life.  But, if we were looking at the Earth from outside the Solar System, could we detect it with current technology?  Likewise, if there is life on Mars, or Titan, or Enceladus, or wherever, is our equipment good enough to find it?

A recent article on Astronomy.com discusses using the Venus Express probe to study Earth. Since Venus Express is orbiting Venus, Earth appears in its instruments as a featureless dot, but the probe can try to identify the chemicals on Earth indicating life’s presence. This is similar to earlier missions to the Atacama Desert in Chile, which attempted to find microbes in the soil using technology similar to that of the Mars Rovers.

You might think that finding life is pretty easy, but experiments such as these show it isn’t quite so simple. Robotic probes tend to look for chemical tracers, since those are easy things to look for. However, life itself is more than just its chemicals, so it remains to be seen if missions like the Phoenix Mars lander will find life. In other words, if life exists on Mars, will the instruments on Phoenix be good enough to find it?

Speaking of Mars, on Monday, October 20, we present a revised and improved version of Water on Mars, Life on Mars.  On July 31, 2008, the Phoenix Mars Mission team announced the first direct evidence for water on the desert planet Mars. In this special presentation, we will take a look at Mars, what we know about it, and what we hope to learn in the future. We will see

• how Mars is similar to Earth, and how it is very different;
• why water is so important to Earth, and what it might mean for Mars;
• what finding water on Mars means about the possibility of life on Mars;
• and other exciting topics!

I hope you can join us on October 20 at 7:30 PM.  As always, admission is $5 per adult, $3 per child under 18, and $10 for a family of 3 or more. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with their ID.

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes & Science Ideas & Science News | No Comments »

Monday, October 6 at 7:30 PM, we present:

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity

Admission is $5 per adult, $3 per child under 18, and $10 for a family of 3 or more. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with their ID.

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes | No Comments »

On July 31, 2008, the Phoenix Mars Mission team announced the first direct evidence for water on the desert planet Mars. In this special presentation, we will take a look at Mars, what we know about it, and what we hope to learn in the future. We will see

• how Mars is similar to Earth, and how it is very different;
• why water is so important to Earth, and what it might mean for Mars;
• what finding water on Mars means about the possibility of life on Mars;
• and other exciting topics!

I hope you can join us on September 22 at 7:30 PM.  As always, admission is $5 per adult, $3 per child under 18, and $10 for a family of 3 or more. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with their ID.

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes & Public Events & Science News | 1 Comment »

We will offer two shows in the month of September:

• September 8, 2008 at 7:30 PM: “Black Holes:  The Other Side of Infinity”
• September 22, 2008 at 7:30 PM:  Special Presentation — “Water on Mars, Life on Mars”

The second show—”Water on Mars, Life on Mars”—will discuss the newest discoveries made by the Phoenix lander and other missions that have been exploring Mars over the last few years.  Look for the big announcement and show description to be posted early next week!

As always, admission is $5 per adult, $3 per child under 18, and $10 for a family of 3 or more. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with their ID.

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes & Public Events | No Comments »

The fall schedule has just been updated, so you can see what shows will be offered from now through December.

We’ll be offering one special program on September 22, a presentation on the new discoveries about Mars. I’ll post more about that as the time approaches.  In addition, we will be showing the newly revised and expanded “See How Far the Light Came”, the show written for our Grand Reopening celebration last winter. Finally, we’ll be bringing back an old holiday favorite, “Season of Light”.

Admission is $5 per adult, $3 per child under 18, and $10 for a family of 3 or more. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with their ID.

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes & Public Events | No Comments »

I am still feeling my way about what kind of website to offer for the planetarium.  Being a scientist who engages in active research in addition to my educational roles (I’m a full-time professor at Lambuth as well as planetarium director), I think it’s important to share discoveries that might be interesting to you, the reader.

So I would like to take an informal poll:  do you read the science postings I have started writing recently?  If you do, what kinds of things would you like me to talk about?  Please send any questions, comments, or suggestions to planetarium@lambuth.edu, and I will use them to help provide the kind of site people will want to read.

Cheers,
Matthew Francis
Director, M.D. Anderson Planetarium

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes & Science Ideas | No Comments »

Alas, I still haven’t processed all of my notes from the Great Lakes Cosmology Workshop I attended two weeks ago.  I learned a great deal, and got caught up on some research topics I hadn’t heard about in a few years, so overall I think it was a successful trip.  However, my promised posts did not happen, for which I apologize.

In lieu of trying to explain some of the talks I heard (most of which are probably not of general interest), I will post some topics over the next few days that are related to cutting-edge research in cosmology.  Stay tuned!

Posted by Matthew R. Francis under Director's Notes | No Comments »

I have safely arrived in Pittsburgh, and based on preliminary conversation with some of my fellow conference attendees, the talks are going to be very interesting.  I will pass along as much information as I can. If you missed the item posted before, I am at the Great Lakes Cosmology Conference at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. 

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