New Horizons at Pluto / Juno at JupiterSpeaker: Dr. Fran Bagenal

Astronomers have long known about Mercury and Venus transits of the Sun. However, this technique, now commonly referred to as the Transit Technique, has been amazingly successful in detecting exoplanets, planets around other stars. To date, nearly 6,000 exoplanets or planetary candidates have been detected, the majority of them using the Transit Technique. This talk will deal with some of the historical observations of Mercury and Venus transits and then summarize the state of current exoplanetary observations.

Professor Simon White, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics

School's out for Summer! NNTO is thrilled to cap the season with guest speakers from the Royal Ontario Museum! Trivia is based on the ROM's collections and we have some delightfully nerdy things for the raffle. You might also get some goodies on the way in. Presentation 1 – “Asteroids: Friend or Foe?” by Dr. Kim Tait

Showtimes: 7:00pm, 8:00pm, and 9:00pm The stars in the night sky seem unchanging and eternal, and have remained the same for the history of human civilization. However, over millions and billions of years, new stars are born, live out their long lives, and eventually die in a blaze of glory. In this show, we will be exploring the lives of stars by visiting stellar nurseries, supernova remnants and much more! If you have questions please contact planetarium@universe.utoronto.ca

Between 1969 and 1972, 12 men traveled over one million kilometers to walk on the surface of the Moon. Today, we couldn’t go back—over the last 40 years, astronauts have not ventured beyond a thin shell surrounding our planet. How is this possible? I will make a case for dreaming big and investing in space exploration, even in the face of our pressing problems closer to home.

George Conidis, PhD Candidate in Physics & Astronomy, York University

Astronomer Christa Van Laerhoven, will discuss planets that orbit stars other than our sun. Some of these planetary systems look very different from our own!

The Department of Physics invites faculty, students and the public to our 41st annual celebration of physics. The Welsh Lectures in Physics have been held annually since 1975 in honour of H.L. Welsh, a distinguished former faculty member in the Physics Department. They are the major public event in the life of the Department of Physics and are intended to celebrate discoveries in physics and their wider impact. They are intended to be broadly accessible to an audience drawn from across the university, other academic institutions and the interested public.

Join The Planetary Society for a night of fun and space themed activities as we celebrate the first human in space Yuri Gagarin, who orbited the planet on April 12, 1961. It's a night where the space science community around the world gets together to party and celebrate this milestone in exploration. We encourage attendees to dress up in space themed attire, e.g. "space pants" (or shorts).