Category: Meetings
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NOVAC Public Meeting: Join NOVAC Astronomers for “Wide-field astrophotography with Dan Zafra ” Online, July 12, 2026
Dan Zafra of Capture the Atlas presents: Wide-field astrophotography Dan Zafra will share his approach to wide field photography, drawing on years of experience as a professional landscape astrophotographer and founder of Capture the Atlas, a leading online photography resource. His talk will cover the planning, shooting, and processing techniques he developed through deep immersion in the craft, including things that made a real difference in the quality of his images. Those Read more […] -
NOVAC Public Meeting: Join NOVAC Astronomers for “Neutron Stars: Nature’s Most Versatile Laboratories” Online, May 3, 2026
Dr. Jacob Turner presents: Neutron Stars: Nature’s Most Versatile Laboratories Dr. Jacob Turner Neutron stars are ultra-dense, rapidly spinning objects born in the violent deaths of more massive stars. Smaller on average than Manhattan, these stars have proven to be among the most multifaceted naturally occurring laboratories every found, with applications ranging from studying the structure of the galaxy, to exploring the existence of exotic states of matter, to detecting perturbations Read more […] -
NOVAC Public Meeting: Join NOVAC Astronomers for “Dragonfly, a Robotic Aerial Exploration of Prebiotic Chemistry and Habitability on Saturn’s moon Titan” Online, April 12, 2026
Dr. Elizabeth Turtle presents: Dragonfly: Robotic Aerial Exploration of Prebiotic Chemistry and Habitability on Saturn’s moon Titan Dr. Elizabeth Turtle Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is an ocean world with a dense atmosphere, abundant complex organic material on its icy surface, and a liquid-water ocean in its interior. The joint NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission revealed Titan to be surprisingly Earth-like, with active geological processes and opportunities for organic material Read more […] -
NOVAC Public Meeting: Join NOVAC Astronomers for “Following in the Footsteps of George R. Carruthers” GMU and Online, March 8, 2026
Dr. Lara Waldrop presents: Following in the Footsteps of George R. Carruthers One of the most significant gaps in our knowledge of Earth’s near-space environment concerns its outermost neutral atmosphere layer known as the exosphere. This region plays a critical role in mediating Earth’s recovery from geomagnetic storms and is the pathway by which its constituent hydrogen (H) atoms are able escape Earth’s gravity and become lost to outer space, leading to permanent planetary evolution. Knowledge Read more […] -
NOVAC Public Meeting, Dr. Meredith MacGregor presents: What’s the Space Weather Like on Proxima Centauri?, September 14, 4:30 pm EDT
What’s the Space Weather Like on Proxima Centauri?
Stars (including our Sun) are active, periodically releasing bursts of high energy radiation called flares. These flares can destroy molecules in the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets and potentially even erode those atmospheres entirely. In order to understand whether any of our nearest neighbors are in fact habitable, we need to determine how frequent and how powerful these flares are. I will present recent discoveries from Read more […] -
NOVAC Public Meeting, Dr. Maya Fishbach presents: Listening to Black Holes with LIGO, August 10, 4:30 pm EDT
Black holes are the most extreme objects in our universe. Thanks to incredibly sensitive instruments — known as gravitational-wave observatories — we can “hear” when two black holes crash into each other.We are now routinely listening to gravitational waves from black holes across the Universe. Dr. Maya Fishback will summarize what gravitational waves are, how we detect them, and what they are teaching us about black holes, their progenitor stars, and cosmology.Dr. Fishbach will be presenting virtually Read more […]
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NOVAC Public Meeting, Dr. David DeVorkin presents: From the Laboratory to the Moon: The Quiet Genius of George Carruthers, July 13, 4:30 pm EDT
Dr. David DeVorkin follows Carruthers from his childhood in Ohio and then Chicago to his career at the US NavalResearch Laboratory in Washington, DC. In the highly competitive world of space science in the 1960s and 1970s, Carruthers’s genius for experimentation and exploration transcended the racial stereotyping and discrimination of his day, and he achieved world-class recognition for his studies of the Earth and deep space. A leading expert in the history of astronomy and space science, DeVorkin Read more […]
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NOVAC Public Meeting, James A. Klimchuk presents Why are the Coronae of the Sun and other Stars so Darned Hot? May 4, 2025, 4:30 pm EDT
NASA Goddard’s Dr. James Klimchuk will explore why he outer atmosphere of the Sun – called the corona – is roughly 1000 times hotter than the underlying solar surface. The same is true of other stars. Solving the famous “coronal heating problem” has been one of the great challenges in astrophysics. It is more than just a fascinating intellectual curiosity. The X-ray and UV radiation produced by coronal heating has damaging space weather affects here at Earth and enormous consequences Read more […]
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NOVAC Public Meeting, Cal Powell presents Aliens in Your Hands: Outreach with Meteorites? April 13, 2025, 7:30 pm EDT
NOVAC member Cal Powell will present an overview of meteorites (and related objects) with an emphasis on using them for astronomy outreach. After the talk attendees will be able to examine specimens from Cal’s meteorite collection. Come to the meeting and take a selfie with a rock from the planet Mars!
Cal will be presenting in person. Join Cal and your NOVAC colleagues at GMU:
Meet at George Mason University, Exploratory Hall, Room 3301. Check the GMU web site for nearby parking options. Read more […] -
NOVAC Public Meeting, Dr. Alan P. Boss presents Are there planets like Earth around other stars? March 9, 2025, 7:30 pm EDT
This talk will summarize the history of the search for exoplanets, beginning in 1938, and leading to NASA’s plans for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a space telescope planned for launch around 2045, intended to detect and characterize Earth-like worlds.
This is a virtual presentation by Dr. Boss –Join your colleagues at GMU or join him virtually using Google MeetJoin your NOVAC colleagues in person at GMU:
Meet at George Mason Read more […]
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