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At last month's club meeting I
asked late arrivers if they knew the score of the
Lakers-Pacers game. Our webmaster, Liam Kennedy
(showing the utmost in dedication had just arrived
at the meeting after a long flight from Washington
DC) told us that the Lakers had won. This subsequently
caused our What's Up presenter, Chris Butler, to
chime in with the fact he didn't much care about
the Laker game since he didn't follow American football.
Laughter followed, naturally. A few days later a
New Zealand sailing buddy of mine commented on the
Laker's eventual championship victory with the comment
that he didn't much care as he didn't follow American
baseball. The difference between the two comments
was that my sailing friend wasn't making a joke.
Well, while many of us followed
the ebbs and flows of the Lakers and Packers, oops,
I mean the Pacers, another event was taken place
in Rochester New York that, to the world of astronomy,
was the equivalent of the World Series, Super Bowl,
NBA Championship, Stanley Cup and the World Cup
all rolled into one. If you are an astronomer then
you know that every year the American Astronomical
Society annual meeting is an incredible event that
showcases many of the most dramatic announcements
of advancements and discoveries in astronomy. The
196th annual meeting was attended by more than 900
professional astronomers. And true to form, many
of the announcements were spectacular. Here is just
a small sample of what came out of that meeting:
A newly reliable measure of the
total density of matter in the universe (Dalton
and Glazebrook)
The first direct evidence of stellar collisions
and mergers (Saffer)
A key lynchpin distance measurement
(the distance of the Large Magellanic Cloud) has
been refined which could change our measurements
for many things in the universe (Fitzpatrick).
Two new stellar classes (L and
T) are added.
Amateur-Professional cooperation
in astronomy moves forward.
As the webmaster for Sky & Telescope is was
a lot of fun to read these stories as the S&T
editors forwarded them for inclusion on the S&T
web site. The entire coverage can be found at http://www.skypub.com/news/000608.html
.
Next year I am looking forward
to the announcement that Shaquille O'Neal has been
declared to be Minor Planet number 10000.
"The goodness of the night
upon you"
Othello Act 1 Scene 2
Russell Sipe
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