Due to weather, this event has been cancelled. Apologies for any inconvenience.
Explore the night sky with astronomers from the Faculty of Science and Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. The Perseids meteor shower will be at its most spectacular, so let's gather to learn something and then enjoy the view! We will meet first at 7:30pm in the nearby Optometry building for a short lecture by the Waterloo Centre for Astrophysics' Dr. Lisa Dang.
Hellish Worlds: the science of lava planets. In the last few decades, astronomers have discovered over thousands of planets orbiting stars other than the sun. Exoplanet hunting missions have revealed a rich diversity of planets vastly different from those residing in the Solar System. Among them a particularly intriguing type of planets discovered are lava worlds - scorching hot rocky planets, like the Earth, orbiting extremely close to their parent star such that they are blasted with irradiation levels that could sustain a magma ocean at the surface. Today, I will talk about how we find these searing hot worlds, how we can study them and what you could experience if you were to visit a lava world.
This is a family-friendly event, but if your kids will have trouble sitting through a lecture, you're welcome to join us on the Columbia Fields around 8:30pm for the stargazing portion of the evening.
Note that if the skies are cloudy, the lecture will still take place on August 12th, but we will not gather on the fields for stargazing. Please register so that we can keep you updated.
Parking is available in Lot X ($7) near the lecture venue, and in the OpenText lot (free) on Frank Tompa Drive, north of Brubacher House. It is an easy walk between both parking lots, the lecture, and the fields. Please do not park in the small gravel lot adjacent to the field, as your car lights interfere with our stargazing.