Recreational Astronomy Night
Join us for our monthly recreational astronomy night meeting. This is where our members get to show their latest projects or give tutorials and tips on just about everything to do with astronomy. Talks start at 7:30pm, socializing at 7:00pm.
- Bryon Czarnik - The Sky This Month, "Mother's Day" Edition
- Richard Blackman - Fiddling with focus, the DIY way
- Elizabeth Tasker - Alien landscapes
Alien landscapes: Before the early 1990s, we only knew about the planets of our Solar System. Now we know of nearly 4000 worlds around other stars. These new discoveries have not been planets like our own. Instead, these are worlds of multiple suns, endless oceans, crusts of lava, lands of perpetual day and everlasting night and even rocks that could be formed from diamond. Let’s take a virtual walk on a few of the most alien worlds discovered and look ahead to what we might discover with our future exoplanet hunting instruments.
Elizabeth Tasker is a researcher and science communicator at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Tokyo. Originally from the UK, Elizabeth read theoretical physics at Durham University before continuing to complete her doctorate in astrophysics at the University of Oxford. Her research explores the formation of stars and planets using computer simulations, and she built these virtual universes at institutes in the USA and Canada before moving to Japan. Elizabeth’s popular science book on planet formation, ‘The Planet Factory’ was published in 2017 (paperback: April 2019) and she also a writer for the NASA NExSS ‘Many Worlds’ online column.
Note that there will be a ‘The Planet Factory’ book signing after the meeting.
Who can attend: Everyone
Fee: Free
Registration: Not required
Organized by: RASC - Toronto Centre
Location: Ontario Science Centre (follow the signs to the RASC meeting)