The guest speaker for this public star night will be Dr. Emily Hardegree-Ullman. The title of her presentation is “Erased from History”.
Einstein, Hawking, Hubble. Ask a stranger to name a
famous astronomer and 9 times out of 10 they will think of a man. Despite the
incredible contributions of women to astronomy, their names are all but
forgotten. In this talk, Dr Hardegree-Ullman will highlight some of the
significant achievements you might not have heard about. The women who this
talk will be about are the Harvard Computers (Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan
Leavitt, and Antonia Maury) and Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin, Jocelyn Bell Burnell
and Margaret Hamilton and Katie Bouman, as well as Vera Rubin, who discovered
dark matter.
Dr. Emily Hardegree-Ullman is a professor in the Physics Department at Colorado State University. She earned her PhD from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she studied the chemical composition of young stellar systems. Emily discovered the fascinating subject of astrobiology while an undergraduate at the University of Arizona. Her prior research projects include searching for methane lakes on Titan, investigating the evolution of protoplanetary disks, and observing extrasolar planet transits.
Weather permitting, after the presentation
visitors will be invited to look through the large telescope at various
celestial objects. The Public Star Nights are usually held the third Friday of
each month, except July, when the LTO is closed for annual maintenance.
If you have any
questions, please call the observatory information line at 970-613-7793 or
check the LTO web site at www.starkids.org [1]