Star Gazing at Canyon Country COC

Attendees were able to gaze into the cosmos by peering through high-powered telescopes provided by local astronomy clubs at College of the Canyons’ Star Party. PHOTOS BY TREVOR MORGAN / THE SIGNAL

By Trevor Morgan

Signal Staff Writer

Students, faculty and astronomy lovers gathered once again atop the hills for an evening “Star Party” at College of the Canyons’ Canyon Country campus. “As he shared a little bit tonight, bringing that aeronautical and aerospace expertise to both domestic flight — in terms of how planes fly from city to city — but also interstellar travel and what those principles are and how they can kind of work toasking a really specific question and the event accommodates all of that,” said Theule. “The touch and feel tables and displays that you’ve seen around kind of bring that science fair vibe that really makes it engaging and I think that’s why the speak-

The semi-annual event was held for its 25th time and welcomed Albion H. Bowers, former chief scientists at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, as its guest speaker.

Bowers’ presentation focused on the advances of fast interplanetary flight and aero gravity assist, technologies used on spacecrafts and projects such as Voyager, Pioneer and New Horizons.

Bowers is also an expert in most things having to do with aeronautical engineering and physics, something that Ryan Theule, vice president at COC’s Canyon Country Campus, said was valuable knowledge to be shared amongst the young scientists there. gether,” said Theule. “So he can think big, interstellarly and he can also think locally. Like, what it’s like to fly between cities and how to make that faster.” Theule said having guest speakers such as Bowers, who can explain things in specific scientific terms or layman’s terms, is encouraging – since the event draws a wide spectrum of attendees. “What we love about our Science Talks events like the Star Party, is that you have that spectrum of students all the way from an elementary school kid, who wants to ask the speakers if the moon made of cheese to, the very technical, scientifically-savvy student who’s close to transfer and heading off or maybe already working in an internship and is ers like coming here because they know that there’s an audience that wants to engage and ask questions and touch and feel their way to what their next journey in science education might look like” Like Star Parties of the past, COC students had their various projects on display, as Theule said in a “science fair vibe,” with some taking up the mantle from last semester when a team of COC science students were able to compete against university-level students for spots on NASA platforms,