VIRTUAL PRESENTATION VIA ZOOM!

Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://msu.zoom.us/j/96746491229?pwd=TW1XcXVLSGkvaEJUQUxVV0ZYUzJrUT09
Meeting ID: 967 4649 1229
Password: MSU
Presented by Dr. Edmund Stark

Did you know that the sun puts out enough energy in one second to power our current needs for half a million years?  That the temperature of the sun’s “atmosphere” is much higher than its surface, and that scientists don’t know why?  Or that the sun has a decades-long sunspot cycle and right now we’re sitting in the minimum of it?  Are you aware that Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars are all lined up in the morning sky, and that our current view of Venus won’t be matched for another eight years?  Join by Zoom to learn more!

Families are invited to join us virtually at MSU St. Andrews for an evening of astronomy.  We will have a presentation focused on the sun: what it is made of, how it formed, and what the forces are that hold it together, as well as those trying to tear it apart. We will describe how it changes day-to-day, month-to-month, over years, centuries, and much longer time periods. Just as important, we will also describe how astronomers can know such things, showing you beautiful images of the sun taken with very different types of instruments.

We will also include a brief update on a bright star that you can see without a telescope which has suddenly dimmed.  And, as always, we will show you how to find the planets (including a nice appearance by Mercury) and other bright objects that are currently in the sky this month and next.

The presentation begins promptly online at 7:30 p.m.

Remember: never look at the sun through a telescope! It takes special equipment to do it safely.

Image of the sun provided by NASA’s public images.