THE USM SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249 www.usm.maine.edu/planet
43.6667° N 70.2667° W
Altitude: 10 feet below sea level
Altitude: 10 feet below sea level
Founded January 1970
CELESTIAL EXPLORATION CLASS:
"Space Weather"
Monday, July 29, 2019 at 7:00 p.m.
Contemplative Albert: Students with the "Earth to Sky Calculus"
program launched a space weather balloon carrying this Albert Einstein
bobblehead 111,222 feet above the Sierra Nevada mountains in California.
We soar skyward during Monday evening's subterranean star dome excursion to explore the rarefied "space weather" region: the tenuous boundary where myriad meteoroids meet their makers and the solar outflow scintillates the electrons into states of upper excitement.
Spaceweather occurs at Earth's upper rims, where our cozy home world rubs against the harsh outer space environs. Space weather involves not only meteor showers and the Aurora Borealis, but also PHAs (Potentially Hazardous Asteroids), sun spots, solar flares, Noctilucent clouds, the "green flash," that rapidly appears around the Sun just before sunrise and just after sunset, and many other phenomena.
We all know our world is many layered: from the geodynamo inducing iron core to the realm above the clouds. Join us on Monday night as we discover the wondrous world of spaceweather.
The class concludes with an 11-minute show entitled "Aurora Storm."
$12 enrollment
$20 for two people
Walk in registrations welcome!