The Astronomy 2009 Island in Second Life(R)

I have the internets and I’m not afraid to use them! Today we premiered our new wireless rig – 2 wireless 3G verizon cards and 2 netgear 3G -> wireless routers, and while we have kinks left to work out, I feel okay saying we are going to stream our little hearts out at this meeting in hopes that you can consume the best of what this meeting has to offer. Specifically, my team – the self-named SIUE Collective (they decided I’m their Borg Queen – Eek!) – will be UStreaming (pending confirmation with all speakers!) along the side the Second Life casting of the wonderful Adrienne Gauthier of the University of Arizona.

The full plan can be found over on Astrosphere, but here are my “I can only see one thing a day” recommended high-lights:

• Mon., Jan. 4
  • 8:30 p.m. Kepler Planet Detection Mission: Introduction and First Results
  • 6:30 p.m.  Gemant Prize: Science as Performance Join us in Second Life [SLURL]

• Tues. Jan. 5
  • 12:30 p.m. Policy Talk: Charles Bolden

• Wed. Jan. 6
  • 8:30 a.m. Invited Talk: John Grunsfeld, Shuttle Atlantis Join us in Second Life [SLURL]

All your bandwidth are belong to us.

But we promise to treat it nicely…

Somewhere over America

Another day and yet another plane. This time I’m on my way to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s annual meeting in San Francisco, California. I’ll be part of three different presentations:

• Panel: The Spectrum of Citizen Science Projects in Astronomy and Space Science (Mon. Sep 14, 3:30pm-5:00pm)
• Panel: International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone Projects: What’s Available for You (Tue. Sep 15, 3:30pm-5:00pm)
• Plenary Panel: The Future is Here: Can EPO Navigate the Digital Age? (Wed. Sep 16, 8:00am-9:30am)

AND…

There will be a meetup for anyone interested (Astro people, twitter people, Galaxy Zoo people, Astronomy Cast people, Star Stryder people, people people) on Wednesday night at 7pm at O’Sole Mio Restaurant.

Will I see you there?

Anyway, today is the opening ceremony. For the first time, we seem to be running on what I’ve heard referred to as “Brazil Time.” Slatted to begin at 2pm, the event finally started at 2:40pm. All of us are crammed into one large auditorium, with members of the media, press officers, and security guards swarming around the edges of the room with cameras and notebooks, radio-headsets, and video cameras. It is a mass of swarming black suites, and at the front of it all is Catherine Cesarsky speaking calmly behind a huge podium, her strong french accented voice projecting from her diminutive 5 foot frame as she inspires with the story of International Year of Astronomy. This year was in part her dream, and she has worked as president of the IAU to make it happen. She is using this address to say 1 year is not enough. This started years ago, with IAU commission 46 working to promote education and development across the world. As we move forward, there is a 10 year plan to promote astronomy education and astronomy education research into the future.

Beyond IYA, this meeting is allowing all of us to catchup on the quickly evolving field that we work in. From new planets (and planetary science), to stellar parameters, out through to extragalactic astronomy, there are plenary sessions designed to help all of us, no matter what general sessions we attend, to catch up across all of astronomy. Finishing her remarks, she reminded all of us to reminder the Universe is ours to Discover.

Following Dr. Cesarsky, a choir sung the Brazilian National Anthem, and this was followed in short order by a Governor and Mayor, and more politicians. The Mayor is relating that the current Brazilian president is looking to shape his budget to improve science and technology in this country. Rio wants to be at the heart of this with its science centers and universities. He said the only thing that is missing within this “I don’t know the word in English, Astro Kink?” is the Sun. (It is raining today). Following the mayor is now the Secretary of Science for Rio. He is pointing out that it is only in recent years that astronomy has been part of the academic programs in Brazil. Things are changing though, from 12 PhD’s in 1974 to over 250 today, there are now 12 astronomy PhD granting programs and new centers are growing every day.

It is hard to keep track of who is who. The city and state have the same name. We have someone who is for certain the governor of Rio speaking now, so I’m not sure who was speaking early that was introduced as a governor. The program isn’t helping. (Luckily I didn’t quote them.)

The governor is discussing how important space and astronomical exploration (via scope and spacecraft) is for the future of Brazil. As Rob at orbitingfrog points out on twitter, “Brazil is already part of ALMA, Gemini, the Extra Large Telescope, and want to do more.”

After all the speakers were done speaking, the stage was taken over by a band of dancers. I hate to admit that this is my favorite part of the conference so far. I can’t dance to save my own life, but I love modern and Latin dances and have always had a fantasy of having enough rhythm to learn how to dance. This is fabulous. They are doing a whole series of local dances, from tango to carnival dances to folk dances. This is very very cool. One of the things that is also brought home by this performance is the ethnic diversity of Brazil. In America we have this rather horrible false impression that Brazil is a country that ethnically looks like Mexico. This is just wrong. People keep trying to talk to me in Portuguese because I’m about the right mix: A random combination of European and native American. There is a rainbow of ethnicities here, ranging from blond blonds (think Italian blond, not scandinavian blond) to the very very black, and everything inbetween, with the majority being fair to olive complexion with dark hair. The dancers have this mix, and their musical stylings bring together the influences of all sorts of stuff I just don’t recognize, but that make me think New Orleans’ creole meets Caribbean meets West African meets Mayan. I wish I’d read more history before I came here. There is also a mix of body types, with a short muscular man dancing with a women whose shoulders he barely reaches, while a women who in the States would be called overweight dances with a tall frighteningly thin man. Partners keep changing and the diversity is clearly celebrated and embraced. All ages. All sizes. All colors. All dancing for the sake of the dance. All dancing together. It is beautiful.

But all goods things must end. From the IAU opening ceremony we are transitioning to the Grueber Prize lectures.

This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Long long ago, in a state that feels very far far away, I found myself with a college admissions essay that asked me what I wanted to research if I was allowed into a very prestigious program I was applying to. Having been strongly influenced by Timothy Ferris’s book “Coming of Age in the Milky Way,” and the story of Henrietta Leavitt in particular, I wrote about wanting to study variable stars and work on the Hubble Key Project someday. While I didn’t get into that program or join the Hubble Key Project, I did go on to work on variable stars, and I have followed the Key Project. If you can be a fan chick for a science project, then I guess I’m a Key Project fan chick.

This year’s Gruber prize is being awarded to Wendy Freedman, Robert Kennicutt and Jeremy Mould for “their breakthrough work in helping establish the age of the Universe” through the Hubble Key Project and their use of Cepheids to determine the Hubble Constant. Freedman is the second women in the prize’s 10 year history to receive this prize (Vera Rubin won in 2002. There have been 15 total awardees counting these three).

In her acknowledgment speech, Freedman is pointing out that this project has it’s roots with Leavitt, and that Leavitt wasn’t even allowed to get a PhD. Things have come a long way in the approximately 90 years, but we still have a long way to go.

Sadly, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear their acceptance review talk. For now, it is just lists of people they are thanking. More tomorrow I guess.

With the end of their list of names, we’re onto the final presentation: UNESCO is speaking on their work with the IAU to create a way to include astronomy sites on the World Heritage list. Currently there are several historical sites that are part of the 890 site World Heritage list that include astronomy: the Kukulcan pyramid at Chichen Itza (Mexico), Newgrange (Ireland), Ulurg-Bek Observatory (Uzbekistan), the Great Pyramids of Giza (Egypt), Stonehedge (UK), Pukava/St Petersburg Observatory (Russia), and Struve Geodetic Arc (Norway).

Right now there isn’t even a mechanism for UNESCO member states to nominate astronomy sites. BUT, the IAU is working to fix that. Currently they are in the process of drafting through ICOMOS a thematic study defining what parameters can be used to define a site as cultural significant based on its astronomical significance. his is needed for ICOMOS to define criteria to judge sites proposed by member States of UNESCO. There are actually no thematic studies of any science topics. In technology there are studies on bridges and canals! These two “Technology” studies are now leading to successful identification of World Heritage bridges and canals.

They are also working with the Starlight Initiative to define ways to preserve dark and pristine sites so that in the future there will still be places where people can go and see the Milky Way with their naked eye.

There is a dream that there will always be places preserved for astronomy – sites with great observatories and dark nights that allow everyone to see the majesty of a starry starry night.

It is a good dream to end on.

One thing LPSC seriously does right is they offer their schedule and abstracts as PDFs online, and when LPSC says abstract, they really mean short paper. Prior to take off I happily downloaded pdfs of all the sessions I’m most interested in. I have to admit to being on a mission to learn about small dead things: Moon, Mercury, and a bit of Mars. With so many missions just starting to spit out science and so many missions getting ready to make their way between worlds, I’ve decided it’s time for a crash course in planetology. I foresee an Astronomy Cast on crater counts somewhere in my future…

This trip it will be just me. Astronomy Cast is currently waiting (mostly patiently) to hear back from the National Science Foundation regarding a grant to support a new round of Astronomy Cast Live. This means that while I hope to blog and Twitter my heart out, I just won’t be able to put out as much coverage as I’ve done at past meetings. Still, some is better then none. Right?

Here is a basic schedule of what to expect.
- Tomorrow is the Education Forum that precedes the main meeting. I’ll be there along with Mary Lynne Dittmar giving workshops on IYA related New Media, including Second Life, podcasting, blogging, Twittering, and more.
- Monday: It’s all Phoenix all the time (maybe – there is also a session on the Origin and Evolution of the Moon I hope to float in and out of).
- Tuesday: Moon Moon Moon. There are back to back to back sessions on Lunar missions today and tomorrow.
- Wednesday: Sadly I have to fly home early to teach Wednesday night back in Edwardsville. Hopefully I’ll find some other bloggers at the meeting and be able to pass on their URLs to you.

For today though, it’s a couple of flights and then a bit of recording of Astronomy Cast.

See you on the other side…

This is a place where the big teams present their big results. In fact, the COSMOS team presented dark matter and baryonic matter maps of the large-scale structure of the universe as a function of time. It was a truly tremendous result that Phil Plait wrote an excellent blog entry about at Bad Astronomy. I also caught a short interview with one of the team members, Richard Massey, which I’ll be incorporating into an Astronomy Cast episode in the next week or so. (As new results come out, I’ll be posting about them here.)

And everyone is here. This is the place where everyone presents a poster presentation or a 5-minute oral presentation on their latest results (I’ll have my name on two presentations, one on Dorrit Hoffleit, and one on online education). This is a place every student comes to try to schmooze their way into the next stage in their career, whether it be a summer internship, graduate school, or their very first post doc. In fact, this is the place any one in search of a job comes to try and schmooze their way into the next step of their career (including me!).

With such a large chunk of the astronomical community in one place, it’s possible to inadvertently run into people whose names usually only exist in things you read. Last night I hung out with Carolyn Collins Peterson, Phil, and other science education folks. Carolyn blogged a bit about it over at the Space Writer Blog. Earlier today I saw Alan Boyle of the Cosmic Log and became a momentary fan chick, thanking him for doing so much to promote and help those of us little guys and gals doing independent blogs and podcasts. It seems every time I turn around there is a new neat person to listen to, learn from, and of course foist business cards on to and out of.

And there are moments of weirdness. This Conference is at The Washington State Convention and Trade Center, and side by side with our astronomer conference is the The Seattle Wedding Show. This means that at one point a bunch of us were going up the escalator in search of NASA schwag while a bunch of “bride to be”s were coming down the opposite elevator with wedding schwag. It also means that at one point during a press conference on the Andromeda Galaxy’s extended halo, “Here Comes the Bride” could clearly be heard in the background.

And sometimes people watching (all “brides to be” aside) is just fun. There are at least 4 people (including me) with unnaturally red hair lurking the conference. And there are the normal freaks and geeks of the community, with their crazy hats, or crazy hair, or just crazy craziness. Anyone who thinks we are a straight-laced community doesn’t know the right people. NASA’s Jeffery Hayes was throwing around the world, occasionally hurling the Earth at unsuspecting souls (he claims women catch flying terra firma 80% of the time to men’s 20% of the time). People generally flew around grabbing up satellite paper models, posters, the occasional project emblazoned jump drives, and gobs of pens like kids in a candy shop where everything is free. Sure, to look at us, it’s a group of grey haired old men with a few women and flocks of undergraduates mixed in for flavoring, but all the flavoring is really spicy.

So, it’s a circus, and I am one of the side show freaks, but I’m in good company. Maybe tomorrow I’ll catch a cool release from a data contortionist or have a chance to see the bearded satellite.

My strongest memory from the last meeting was visiting the Icon Bar and Grill with a friend and Phil Plait’s old manager and, as a bi-gender group, checking out the cool decorations in both the male and female restrooms. Seriously – they are totally worth a special trip. I hope to visit there again and get pictures this time.

The AAS meeting is one of my favorite of the year. It is crowded, noisy, has too many people, and is always exhausting. I usually work myself into a caffeinated frenzy trying to keep up with both my science presentations and journalistic (or at least podcaster) coverage of the daily events. None of these things scream, “This is a fun experience.” But, in the midst of the frenetic activity are all the friends I only see at meetings, and in the press room I get to work side-by-side with some of the smartest writers I know, trying to figure out how to bring to the public the best and most interesting 1000+ astronomers have to offer.