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 […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Heidi Hammel, Vice President for Science, The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: During the late 1980s, our understanding of the local ice giants – Uranus and Neptune – was revolutionized by detailed images taken by the Voyager spacecraft. However, those images were static: brief snapshots in time […]

GUEST SPEAKER: John O’Meara, Chief Scientist, W. M. Keck Observatory VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: The coming year promises to be an exciting one for astronomy on the ground and in space.  With new instrumentation being delivered to Keck Observatory, and exciting missions like JWST in space, 2022 will deliver transformative new capabilities to astronomy.  Looking even […]

Here Comes Santa… LIVE! We’re excited to bring Santa to the Waimea community this year as part of a fun, socially safe event to support families in need! Santa Live is a 30-minute interactive drive-in experience with live song and dance performances, a snow machine, and photo op. Santa will broadcast live from the North […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Mike Brown, Director, Caltech Center for Comparative Planetary Evolution (The Guy Who Killed Pluto) VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: In the past 175 years, more than 30 separate astronomers have suggested the existence of a giant planet beyond Neptune. They have always been wrong. In 2016, Dr. Michael Brown and Dr. Konstantin Batygin joined the […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Christine Moran, Deputy Manager, NASA Exoplanet Exploration Program, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Exploring is fundamental to being human, one of the cornerstones of why we do science, and why Dr. Moran has taken her personal career journey. What was it like living at the South Pole for almost a year? […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Lauren Corlies, Deputy Head of Education and Public Outreach, Vera C. Rubin Observatory VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Galaxies turn gas into giant collections of stars that light up the universe.  This simple statement of what happens with galaxies like our own leads to deeper questions of how this happens:  How does gas flow into galaxies?  […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Steven Finkelstein, Associate Professor of Astronomy, Provost’s Teaching Fellow, University of Texas at Austin VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Just after the Big Bang, the universe was filled with a fog of cool hydrogen gas. When the first stars and galaxies began to form, energetic light from these objects heated and ionized this gas, removing […]

GUEST SPEAKER: Mansi Kasliwal, Assistant Professor, California Institute of Technology VIRTUAL ASTRONOMY TALK: Our dynamic universe is adorned by cosmic fireworks: energetic and ephemeral beacons of light that are a million (nova) to a billion (supernova) times brighter than our Sun. Fireworks synthesize most elements in our periodic table – while supernovae synthesize the lighter […]