Connecting with the Cosmos at the AAAS Conference
I was proud to be part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Conference this past Saturday. Family Science Day was filled with interactive booths from many scientific disciplines, some of the most popular being freezing popcorn with liquid nitrogen (and getting to eat it!) and seeing a tiny living space made out of a dumpster.
Experiencing the enormity of some of the world’s largest telescopes first hand is not something accessible to most people, so I brought a life-sized model of the Gemini Telescope I visited when I went to Chile as part of the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program.
Model of the Gemini Telescope mirror in the foreground
Something I tell people often is that astronomers measure the size of telescopes like we measure the size of pizzas, by diameter. For telescopes, this means the diameter of the main mirror. The Gemini Telescope main mirror is about 8 meters in diameter, or 26 feet! I got curious and wondered if there existed a pizza as big as this or bigger, and guess what…
https://www.eater.com/2012/5/9/6588321/the-worlds-largest-pizza-ever-weighed-26883-lbs
This is the world’s largest pizza. It is 122 feet in diameter!!! Maybe the telescope makers have something to learn here…
Family Science Day at the AAAS Conference
I didn’t bring pizza this big for everyone to see that day, but the life sized model of this Gemini mirror sparked up a lot of curiosity and conversations about astronomy in Chile. “The U.S. has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in astronomy infrastructure in Chile, and tens of millions of dollars more each year for operations, and new projects are already under way,” explains the Office of Education and Public Engagement for Associated Universities Inc., the organization that manages some of the world’s most complex scientific facilities.
The National Science Foundation has aided in funding the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), Gemini-South Observatory, the Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA), and is collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy, to build the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST).
Huge projects like these are a collaborative effort. Many U.S. institutions are also helping to build the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) in Chile. According to Associated Universities Inc., “By the year 2022, 70% of the world’s astronomy infrastructure will be located in Chile.”
Informing U.S. citizens of our heavy involvement in astronomy in Chile is why the ACEAP program began. This year will be the 4th year for astronomy educators, amateur astronomers, astrophotographers, planetarium professionals and teachers to have the chance to experience astronomy in Chile first hand and bring back this experience to our citizens. I am excited to see what unique ways they will find to bring back what they learned and share it with us.