Showtimes: 7:00pm, 8:00pm, and 9:00pm Centuries before Galileo observed the moons of Jupiter, scientists in the Middle East were building the first cameras and developing the physics of light. Without the benefit of modern technologies, they took some of the first steps in understanding the motions of the planets and in explaining the nature of the Universe.

Speaker: Cordell Grant, University of Toronto Space Flight Laboratory (UTIAS-SFL)

James Edgar, President, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada All stars are born from hydrogen and during their lives they produce elements through nuclear fusion. High-mass stars end their lives as supernovae, perhaps the most cataclysmic events in the universe, producing the heavy elements. This talk merges James Edgar’s love of woodworking, astronomy, genealogy, chemistry, physics, and poetry from Northern Ireland, although the main thrust of the presentation is about how elements form within stars.

River Place Park, Aytonhttp://www.nyaa.ca/index.php?page=/sf16/sf.home16

Yuri’s Night is held April in commemoration of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to venture into space on April 12, 1961. Celebrate 55 years in space with the Toronto Chapter of the Canadian Space Society.

Come help us celebrate International Observe the Moon Night and World Space Week with a short lecture about remote sensing in lunar science followed by a night of rooftop observing. Lecture: 6:30-7:30pmRooftop Observing: 7:30-9:00pm

Half of all stars in the night sky are actually in pairs or “binaries.” That is, instead of a single star like our Sun, these systems have two stars orbiting each other. Planets in these systems could have twice as many sunrises and sunsets. There could be twice as many solar systems to explore, double the habitable zones and, therefore, more opportunities for life to form! Is this really the case? Life here on Earth fundamentally relies upon the Sun’s (relatively) stable and quiet nature. Binaries, on the other hand, are sometimes found to exchange mass and more often explode!

The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) is a new and powerful radio telescope that has recently completed construction on a high plateau in northern Chile. The first science results from ALMA include a stunning array of images of astronomical sources ranging from very young stars that are still in the process of forming to galaxies at the limits of the visible universe. Professor Christine Wilson has been involved with ALMA in a variety of roles throughout its design and construction and will give an overview of the telescope itself as well as some of its most exciting science.

Prof. Victoria Kaspi, Department of Physics, McGill University Neutron stars are a celestial gift to scientists. These incredibly dense collapsed stars act as very precise cosmic beacons that help shed light on some of the most challenging problems in modern physics. In her Feb. 3 talk at Perimeter Institute, astrophysicist Victoria Kaspi will explore these strange objects, explain how astronomers are using them to study issues ranging from the origins of the universe to the very nature of matter, and even let the audience hear the cosmic symphony they create.