GUEST SPEAKER: Chas Beichman, Executive Director, NASA Exoplanet Science Institute (NExScI) VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: The exoplanet revolution began in 1995 with the Nobel-Prize winning discovery of a “Hot Jupiter” orbiting the sun-like star 51 Pegasi. Thousands of planets have since been detected in the succeeding two decades, many of them either found by or validated […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Wen-fai Fong, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Join us as Wen-fai Fong describes the universe’s fastest explosions. When we look at the night sky, we see a static universe. However, astronomical observational surveys have revealed that our universe is, in fact, ever-changing. This “transient” sky […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Emily Martin, National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Fellow, University of California, Santa Cruz VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK | The NIRSPEC instrument upgrade was completed in December 2018, just in time to observe the fly-by of a near-Earth comet. Dr. Martin will discuss details of the NIRSPEC upgrade, from the new detectors and optics, […]

Guest SpeakerJessica Werk Associate Professor, Department of Astronomy University of Washington The majority of atoms in the Milky Way, including on our planet, did not originate within our own galaxy and were likely fused in stars from long-dead satellite galaxies. These atoms have been cycling over vast scales for billions of years, swept up in […]

Guest SpeakerChris Fassnacht Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy University of California, Davis Look around you. Everything that is familiar to us, what we would call “normal” matter, makes up just a tiny fraction of what is out there. Instead, the universe is dominated by the dark side, and the question of what makes up […]

Guest SpeakerRebecca Larson NSF Fellow, Ph.D. Astronomy Student The University of Texas at Austin We’ll go on a journey of discovery that started with a small blip in Hubble images, became a fully-confirmed galaxy after Keck Observatory confirmed the (surprisingly bright) hydrogen signature, and is now a fully-characterized and incredibly interesting galaxy with JWST detections […]

Guest SpeakerDan Huber Associate Astronomer University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy Although we cannot hear it with our own ears, the Sun and other stars in the sky have been performing a concert for billions of years. Similar to a boiling pot of water, gas cells on the surface of stars that are the size […]

BIG ISLAND SCIENCE & EDUCATIONAL FUN The community is invited to explore the amazing science happening here on Hawaiʻi Island during the annual AstroDay celebration on Saturday, Nov. 5, at Kona Commons Shopping Center in Kailua-Kona. Organized by the Mauna Kea Astronomy Outreach Committee (MKAOC), this free, family-friendly event offers entertaining and engaging STEM activities, […]

Take a Trip Through the Solar System! Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, W. M. Keck Observatory, and the Maunakea Observatories are bringing back a hybrid Waimea Solar System Walk for 2022. The walk launches on October 29th with an in-person event along Ala ʻŌhiʻa Road in Waimea from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. and combines our favorite aspects […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Jessie Christiansen, Astrophysicist, NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: We speculated about the existence of planets orbiting other Suns for hundreds, if not thousands of years before their existence was finally confirmed. During that time we invented and depicted many new and now iconic sci-fi worlds – mysterious planets with […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Karen Meech, Astronomer, Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai`i at Manoa VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: No one knows if our solar system, with a planet possessing the necessary ingredients for life within our Sun’s habitable zone, is a cosmic rarity. Nor do we know whether the gas giants in our solar system played a […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Kelly Fast and Lindley Johnson, Near-Earth Object Observations Program Manager and Planetary Defense Officer, NASA VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Near-Earth objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that orbit the Sun like the planets, but with orbits that can bring them into Earth’s neighborhood. An asteroid impact is the only natural disaster that could be […]