IYA News
Welcome to the International Year of Astronomy!
The kickoff event for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA) in the United States took place on Tuesday January 6th, 2009 at the annual American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, California. Beginning and ending with sidewalk observing, the proceedings featured introductory remarks by U.S. IYA leaders Doug Isbell and Steve Pompea, followed by NASA IYA lead Hashima Hasan, who unveiled a sneak peak of mural-sized images of the spiral galaxy Messier 101 from NASA’s Great Observatories. NASA’s contribution to the event also included a display of images from the "From Earth to the Universe" global cornerstone project and the "Visions of the Universe: Four Centuries of Discovery" exhibit for libraries.
Visit the U.S. IYA Newscenter for the full scoop – including a virtual ribbon cutting of the IYA presence in Second Life and news on the world premier of the new PBS television documentary "400 Years of the Telescope".
Capture the Colorful Cosmos Kicks Off in July
Online robotic telescopes allow students, educators, and families to create their own public astrophotography exhibitions this summer.
To celebrate IYA and the COPUS Year of Science "Month of Astronomy," the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, NASA, and the Association of Science-Technology Centers are collaborating on the "Capture the Colorful Cosmos" astrophotography project. This unique, free program will give members of the public online access to the MicroObservatory robotic telescopes, to take and colorize their own images of stars and galaxies the same way that NASA astronomers do. Participating museums, nature centers, libraries, and other informal education organizations will run public workshops that result in exhibitions of original visitor-created astrophotography displays. The project runs from July through September. Learn more at http://www.universeforum.org/iyacosmos/
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| Participants in the CCC Astrophotography Project can "Observe with NASA" by controlling robotic "MicroObservatory" telescopes like this one. Image Credit: SAO/MKI/Citizen Schools | Capture the Colorful Cosmos to create your own astrophotography exhibit display like this one by middle-schoolers from Citizen Schools. Image Credit: SAO/MKI/Citizen Schools | The Orion Nebula, as imaged by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (a Great Observatory); and by a MicroObservatory telescope (inset). Image Credit: NASA/HCO/SAO |
Get Pulled In!
Visitors Gravitate to the "Black Holes" Traveling Exhibition.
On June 21, 2009, the national traveling exhibition "Black Holes: Space Warps & Time Twists" opened to public at Boston's Museum of Science. Filled with hands-on models and interactive, immersive computer stations, "Black Holes" pulls visitors in to the modern search for real black holes--the most mysterious and powerful objects in the universe. Developed by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics with support from the National Science Foundation and NASA, the exhibition and accompanying website help visitors weigh the evidence for real black holes in our universe as they embark on an amazing journey to the edge of space and time. The exhibition begins its three year national tour in October, 2009. Explore more at http://www.BlackHolesExhibit.org.
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| Visitors entering the "Black Holes" exhibition create their own bar-coded "Explorer's Card" that they can use throughout the gallery to collect digital artifacts, images, and discoveries. By using the card, visitors generate their own private web site journal of their visit, which becomes their personal portal to further online exploration of black holes back home. Image Credit: SAO/Clive Grainger | Hands-on models help visitors understand the techniques astronomers use to search for evidence that invisible black holes exist. Image Credit: SAO/Clive Grainger |
Monthly Feature
During each month of the International Year of Astronomy, we'll highlight some key NASA missions, space science discoveries, and night-sky wonders that you can discover with your own observations and explorations, and we'll connect you to related NASA resources and events.
Join us each month of 2009 as we explore:
| 2009 | » Hot Topics | » Go Observe! |
|---|---|---|
| January | Telescopes and Space Probes: Today's Starry Messengers | Venus |
| February | Our Solar System | The Moon |
| March | Observing at Night... and in the Day | Saturn |
| April | Galaxies and the Distant Universe | The Whirlpool Galaxy |
| May | Our Sun | The Sun |
| June | Clusters of Stars | The Hercules Cluster |
| July | Black Holes | Our Galaxy: the Milky Way |
| August | Rocks and Ice in the Solar System | Perseids |
| September | Planets and Moons | Jupiter |
| October | What is the Fate of the Universe? | Andromeda |
| November | The Lives of Stars | The Crab Nebula |
| December | Discovering New Worlds | The Orion Nebula |
Additional News
Additional IYA related News & Events can be found on the official IYA News and Press Releases pages.
Galaxies Collide
Galaxies are in constant motion. This pair of crashing galaxies is called "The Antennae" because the long streamers of stars thrown off early in the collision resemble an insect’s antennae.