Our Town
Professor Bildsten in action at his star lecture for the LCO’s annual event
by Joanne A. Calitri
Joanne is a professional international photographer and journalist. Contact her at: BeatArtist8@aol.com
Hearing the Stars with Lars
Setting up for the lecture at SB Museum of Natural History are (from left): sporting his “Starry Starry Night” blue tie, guest speaker Lars Bildsten, with LCO president Todd Boroson and museum president Luke Svetland
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rofessor Lars Bildsten, director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB, in conjunction with the Las Cumbres Observatory [LCO] Astronomy Talk Series and the SB Museum of Natural
History [SBMNH], presented current scientific findings about the interior of stars in our known galaxy at the SBMNH Fleischmann Auditorium on Wednesday, February 22. It was a full-on star evening that began with a
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planetarium show, followed by Lars’s lecture, a reception, and a viewing of the night sky provided by the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit equipped with mega telescopes and computer programming on the museum’s side patio. Luke Swetland, president and CEO of the SBMNH welcomed the attendees. Javier Rivera, Astronomy Programs manager, talked about the museum’s reopened The Palmer Observatory, the largest of its kind located between Los Angeles and San Francisco, whose dome telescope opening rotates a full 360 degrees. Observations are digitally recorded for scientific data, used by local schools and compiled for its planetarium shows. Todd Boroson, LCO president and observatory director introduced Lars and said, “Las Cumbres Observatory’s one-of-a-kind worldwide network of robotic telescopes allows scientists to make continuous astronomical observations and share it on an open network for the benefit of researchers everywhere. LCO’s internet-based artificial intelligence scheduler takes requests for observations from multiple sources, analyzes everything from competing requests to the weather at each telescope site, then directs individual telescopes to make the desired observations and compiles the results. Studies include supernovae, exoplanets, and near-Earth objects.” Lars began the lecture by reviewing basic laws of physics for sound waves and their known behaviors in oceans as the fundamental lead into their impact for star research. From there, he segued to the sun. Sound waves get shorter the closer they get to the sun’s surface and either jump through and leave the surface or reflect back down into the core and around again. Solar flares set off sound waves on the opposing surface. Sound-wave speed rises as it goes to the sun’s core and then drops off due to the increase in helium at the sun’s center, which is heavier than hydrogen. This is how scientists explain that the sun is burning out.
• The Voice of the Village •
In 2009, the launching of the Kepler telescope into space to study the stars accelerated the database by recording the measurements of thousands of stars every 30 minutes for a fiveyear period – tens of thousands of stars across the Milky Way to be exact. The data found many stars brighter and larger than our sun. By measuring how bright a star is over many years, scientists can directly measure its mass, radius, rate of rotation, and sometimes the magnetic field it possesses, and identifying stars that are in short-lived phases of their evolution. Lars briefed us on MESA, the Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics, founded by Bill Paxton. MESA is an open source for anyone worldwide to download source code, compile it, and run it for their own research or education purposes. He concluded the lecture by fielding questions from more than 150 attendees comprising students from UCSB, SBCC, and like-minded community members. After the lecture Javier escorted me to the “star party” on the outside patio where the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit – Chuck McPartlin, Pat McPartlin, Joe Doyle, Martin Meza, Tom Totton president, Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit, Chris Larson, Jurgen Hilmer, Erin O’Connor astronomy instructor for SBCC, and SBCC students Valeria Orellana Canales and Ugo Tsimaratos – had set up four amazing telescopes pointed at the four key directions for observing the night sky. It was amazing to have the chance to view our beautiful stars and planets in such detail. My personal favorite was Tom’s super telescope to view the Orion nebula, a mere 1,344 light years from Earth! His telescope was so large, in fact, there was a mini-ladder if needed to for viewing. Guests swarmed the area and soaked up knowledge despite freezing temperatures. Indeed, a stellar evening was experienced by all. •MJ 411: www.lco.global 411: www.sbau.org 411: www.mesastar.org 2 – 9 March 2017