We just had a brief potential moment of food and drink. People from countries derived from the UK politely attempted to line up (queue), while others, um, did not. A few lucky people got food (including cake!), wine or beer, and even juice or soda by the can. They other 1300 people looked sad. This has been a regular occurrence, with the food and beverages providing only being sufficient for a few hundred (or far far fewer!) people. This is a serious problem that I have thwarted only by being a member of the press. The press room has a constant supply of bottled water.

Anyway – On a more positive note, can I just say it is a blast seeing almost everyone in T-shirts and casual cloths? Kevin Marvel, Pres of the AAS, is in a Hawaiian style shirt. There are all sorts of geek shirts I’ve never seen everywhere. Must ask for websites

My only real, and not fixable unless I walk away from my keyboard, problem is not knowing what the other bloggers/twitters look like in real life! I saw Carolune yesterday, but I keep looking at name badges trying to spot OrbitingFrog, but have so far failed. Oh well, I guess I need to stand up and be social.

The image above comes from the last day of the meeting. A fan of Astronomy Cast who we’d corresponded with before offered to show me some of the city. It was a fabulous adventure.

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.

As an IYA organizer, one of my greatest delights has been randomly finding IYA logos in random places. My first moment of glee was at the National Maritime Museum in London where their gates were govered in IYA logos, and then I had a thrill to find IYA in Japan at a Solar Eclipse festival. Here in the US, my sightings (outside of events I was part of), have been few and far between. Okay, here in the US, my sightings have actually been non-existent, but then I don’t get out much. Nonetheless, IYA has a cool logo and seeing all the places that people have grown giant programs bearing the logo has been really inspiring.

In Mexico City, one well publicized public event attracted 25,000 people to fill a plaza.

In Brazil, 40,000 people have looked through a telescope for the first time.

In India they created a series of videos to play on the major networks in many languages.

In Japan, over 1000 book stores had IYA displays.

In South Africa, they realized most of their continent didn’t have the resources to do a lot so they launched a continent wide teacher training program. (And their opening ceremony was a weeklong packed event!)

In Portugal IYA was part of the Carnival celebrations – a theme for parades!

UNESCO is even working to turn astronomy sites into world heritage sites, working to rpoetct places with cultural value and dark skies for future generations.

For the past two days, numbers have been flying faster than I could catch as we all flipped franticly through our 12 minute presentations. Over and over I’ve been impressed with the energy that is coming from non-western nations. The best photo of the day was the winner of an astronomy folklore contest in Mexico accepting a Celestron telescope as a prize. He was an older farmer who could have stepped out of a folklore story – he wore a straw hate and linen shirt over his sun browned skin.

All across the globe, IYA was accepted as not just something neat to be a part of, but rather it was accepted as something necessary and needed as a mechanism to educate about science and to give hope and inspire people to be part of something global and great.

Basically – they got it. All around the world, already tired academics and amateur astronomers with full time jobs said “This is one year when I won’t sleep because I want to make IYA happen. I want to be part of helping people understand the Universe really is theirs to discover.”

They got it.

Now don’t get me wrong. Lot’s of people in the US get it too. There are several people who lost custody of their lives to IYA (and my husband would tell you I’m one of them). I look at the folks behind “Dark Skies Awareness,” “Galileoscope,” “From Earth to the Universe,” and other projects, and I see people who have made a lot of personal sacrifices (Sometimes even investing their own money to guarantee that projects happen!). We have our own cadre of people – proportional to our population – who are working their hearts out making IYA global events a reality. Somewhere, somehow, we just ran out of energy to hold GIANT real world events at the national level.

We also lack the density. At one point today, I was really not happy with the failure of the US to have GIANT events that weren’t related to the 100 Hours of Astronomy. But than I had a reality check. The 25,000 person event in Mexico was in Mexico City, which is bigger than New York City. They have a large enough population that if they want to have a 25,000 person astronomy event and throw enough publicity at it, they only need to collect 1 in about 400 people, and I’d guess that 1 in 400 people have a big enough interest in astronomy to actively go to a talk if they hear about it. Events like the Mars closest approach in 2003 (which was well publicized), do get very large crowds counted in the 1000s.

But lets face it, if you live in Montana, a 25,000 person event is going to be hard. Especially when you factor in the price of gas

The US is thinking globally in a lot of what we do. We are running 6 of the cornerstone projects, 1 task group, at least 1 special project, and probably a few other things I’ve forgotten about. We have a wonderful network of amateurs who are running a wonderful network of grass roots programs that are attracting a few hundred people here and a couple 1000 people there. Maybe, given the density of our country, this is as good as it gets. And what we have is pretty good. Pretty [expletive] good.

And we still have 5 months to go…

I’m currently at the XXVII General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro. For the next two weeks, astronomers from all around the globe will converge on the SulAmerica Convention Center.

I’m here to represent the USA in Special Session 2: The International Year of Astronomy. I have 12 minutes this afternoon to communicate all the IYA events in the USA, ranging from NASA events to Independent events to movie events, to everything else, including all of new media. In 12 minutes. I feel like I’m preparing as 12 course sampling menu, where no one item is enough to sate you, but taken together you feel a bit plump.

I arrived mid-day yesterday, and I have to admit that I’m still trying to process my impressions. Rio is a huge city! The population is 10 million. It is also a poor city. I took a taxi from the airport to my hotel in Cococabana. Along the way we through mile after mile of slums. I’d heard about the slums, but seeing them was a powerful things. There was a boy grazing a horse under a high way over pass, and a few minutes later I saw more horses grazing along a river covered in trash while kids played in a dusty lot between shambled buildings that often lacked roofs and windows.

This morning I learned that several of the male astronomers have already been mugged, at least one at gun point, within a block of the strip along which all our hotels are located. The message – Do Not Go Out After Dark – is being repeated over and over. But the meeting ends at 5:30pm and is set behind the mountains by 6pm. I think I just may be having dinner in my hotel room tonight.

But within the convention center, this is an astronomy conference like any other, just bigger. If anything, the population is younger than I’m used to (One senior astronomer quipped that most people her age probably opted to stay home and stay safe). There are row after row after row of posters, and room after room of parallel sessions. Talks are being given on every topic within astronomy, and representatives are here from all the space agencies, Astronomy Science Organizations (like NOAO and NRAO), and professional societies of the world. I’ve now heard 4 talks in 4 different accents (all talks are given in English). There are only 2 things marking the meeting as a bit different: There are seriously fewer laptops than I have seen in recent years (we were advised not to bring a computer unless we had to), and people not presenting are dressed very casually (T-shirts on tenured faculty! Again, we were recommended to dress down).

Throughout the week I’m going to try and blog and twitter highlights of the meeting. The rest of today and tomorrow morning is all IYA all the time. Then it will be science. And I’m going to try and bring as much of the science to you as I can. That said, I’m just one person and there is a lot going on. Want a fuller picture of what’s going on? Check out the full list of bloggers and twitters over on Orbiting Frog.

(Pictures will be added, so look back later)