This weekend commemorates the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first use of a telescope in astronomy.  Galileo didn’t invent the telescope, and of course astronomy predates Galileo by centuries, but combining the two established the modern view of the Solar System proposed by Copernicus and Kepler.

To commemorate this event, the world is celebrating 100 Hours of Astronomy:  http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/. The event began on Thursday (local time here) and will end tomorrow, with many events going on worldwide. We will be a trifle late, since our regular program is on Monday night, but rest assured: we will talk about Galileo, what made his discoveries so important, and hopefully weather will permit us to go outside and see Saturn’s “ears” (as Galileo called the rings when he discovered them).

Our main show on Monday, April 6 is Oasis in Space, the search for liquid water in the Solar System and beyond. After the main program, we will celebrate Galileo, and hopefully go outside to use our telescopes. The program begins at 7:30 PM, and costs $5 for adults, $3 for children under 18, and $10 for a family of 3 or more. Lambuth students, faculty, and staff are admitted free with their ID.

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Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, so today marks his 130th birthday.  Justifiably one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, Einstein left his mark on several branches of physics, and his theoretical discoveries opened up possibilities that he himself did not dream of.  His famous formula, E = m c², played a major role in establishing how stars (including our own Sun) shine, and his theory of general relativity led to our modern understanding of the history and evolution of the universe, the field we know as cosmology.

On Monday, March 16 after the regular presentation, we will pay a brief homage to Albert Einstein. 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.

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60-inch reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson

On December 13, 1908, the 60-inch reflecting telescope of the Mount Wilson Observatory was first tested.  This telescope was the first of the large mirror-based (as opposed to lens-based, or refracting) telescopes to be built, and it’s no exaggeration to say it changed astronomy.  Edwin Hubble later used this telescope to confirm that the “spiral nebulae” in the sky were actually separate galaxies, providing the first hint about the size of the universe.  Hubble also found that the farther a galaxy is away from us, the faster it is moving away—the first measurement of the expansion of the universe.

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