Apr 20 2015
The Hubble Space Telescope — one of mankind’s most successful scientific creations — will turn 25 years on Friday, April 24. To celebrate, the Physics and Astronomy Department at UC Riverside will be holding special activities the week from April 20 to April 24. All activities are free and open to the public.
The Orion Nebula as captured by the Hubble. NASA/ESA.
The exhibit will launch at 12 noon Monday, April 20, inside UCR’s Orbach Library, where three speakers will describe the Hubble’s scientific importance and UC Riverside’s connection to the space telescope. Speakers include Umar Mohideen, chair of Physics and Astronomy; University Librarian, Steve Mandeville-Gamble; and Prof. Gabriela Canalizo. They will be surrounded by pictures of the galaxy taken by the Hubble.
Other events related to the exhibition:
6 p.m. Wednesday, April 22 – Graduate students speak at Pierce Hall, room 2226, about the access they have had to state-of-the-art data for their research.
9 p.m. Thursday, April 23 — Telescope observations on the Pierce Hall lawn.
5 p.m. Friday, April 24 — Live webcast with the National Museum of Air and Space broadcast into Chung Hall 205, featuring footage of missions to the Hubble.
6:30 p.m. Friday, April 24 — Special talk with Prof. Brian Siana about how the Hubble data has impacted the work related to Physics and Astronomy at UC Riverside, in Chung Hall 205
Mario De Leo Winkler, who is a postdoc in the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, has put together the exhibit to mark the importance of the space telescope to physics and astronomy research. The telescope was never expected to get to 25 years, and will only continue on depending on funding.
“The Hubble is the first great ultraviolet, visual and near infrared space telescope,” De Leo Winkler said. “It has produced some of the sharpest images of the known universe because it is not affected by Earth’s atmosphere and produced over 10,000 scientific reports.”