The Friends of Arlington’s David M. Brown Planetarium is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, incorpo The Friends of Arlington's David M.
Brown Planetarium, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization, was founded in 2010 to save the Arlington school based planetarium from closure due to budget cuts. The organization continues to raise funds to help support and improve the planetarium facility and promote science education for the general public. The group also sponsors a college scholarship, provides grants for teacher professional develo
pment, and purchases licenses of planetarium programming for the school system and the community. As part of its ongoing public education mission, the organization hosts a variety of science themed public events and screenings of full-dome videos. Brown Planetarium has an all-volunteer Board of Directors and Advisory Council.
Operating as usual
March 30, 8-9 pm. Register to attend in person or online.
Join Marc Shepanek from NASA’s Office of the Chief Health and Medical Officer to hear about testing sites on Earth — like the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions — that support work done on the International Space Station and beyond.
NASA aims to develop a spacecraft capable of steering the International Space Station (ISS) to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere when its time in orbit is up.
The agency doesn't want to depend solely on Russian cargo spacecraft to deorbit the ISS.
In the Wasatch Mountains of the western US on the slopes above a spring-fed lake, there dwells a single giant organism that provides an entire ecosystem on which plants and animals have relied for thousands of years.
"Pando" is a 106-acre stand of quaking aspen clones.
Although it looks like a woodland of individual trees with striking white bark and small leaves that flutter in the slightest breeze, Pando (Latin for "I spread") is actually 47,000 genetically identical stems that arise from an interconnected root network.
In the Wasatch Mountains of the western US on the slopes above a spring-fed lake, there dwells a single giant organism that provides an entire ecosystem on which plants and animals have relied for thousands of years.
When faced with a potentially mission-ending problem with NASA's 15-year-old Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, engineers performed a time-honored procedure to fix it: They turned it off and then turned it back on again.
Success! IBEX is now fully operational again.
NASA fixes malfunctioning spacecraft the same way you fix your troublesome laptop When faced with a potentially mission-ending problem with NASA's 15-year-old Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft, engineers performed a time-honored procedure...
The preflight checklist enabled the advancement of aviation technology by ensuring that, with proper protocols in place, pilots could safely fly the increasingly complex aircraft that sprang from the minds of engineers. Read more in the latest Air & Space Quarterly.
How an accident gave us the checklist, and safer flying.
Axiom Space on Wednesday revealed a prototype of the lunar spacesuit that NASA plans to use for its astronauts during Artemis missions, which are set to launch later this decade.
Axiom Space on Wednesday revealed a prototype of the lunar spacesuit that NASA plans to use on its Artemis missions to the moon.
A massive star on the cusp of death ejected huge volumes of hot gas into space. Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument revealed the structure of the material now surrounding the star.
NASA aims to develop a spacecraft capable of steering the International Space Station (ISS) to a controlled destruction in Earth's atmosphere when its time in orbit is up.
The agency doesn't want to depend solely on Russian cargo spacecraft to deorbit the ISS.
If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to fall into a black hole, a dusty gas cloud in the galactic center can give you an idea. Observations of the cloud dating back to 2002 show it’s coming apart in the presence of the supermassive behemoth residing there.
Two decades of observations show a dusty gas cloud elongating as it approaches our galaxy's supermassive black hole.
Timeline photos
This week in science we saw Sun rays on Mars and a spider eating a shrew!
☄️🕷️🧠🌤️🔌🤡
Comet https://bit.ly/3JiCjjb
Hungry spider https://bit.ly/3mtWu4M
Illusions https://bit.ly/3Zzrw9I
Sun on Mars https://bit.ly/3ZpkiFE
Superconductor https://bit.ly/3mBOnDA
Clowns https://bit.ly/3Zi0pjP
Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2020
This quartet of new instruments promises to deliver stunning science on the hot-button issues. But, as with the previous great leaps forward in size, the new scopes likely will also make discoveries that no one can yet envision. As Pat McCarthy, vice president of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) Organization, puts it: “We expect to learn things we don’t know.”
There's about to be some new telescopes in town.
A team of researchers has been able to see inside faraway spiral galaxies for the first time to study how they formed and how they change over time, thanks to the powerful capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope.
The Origin of Water on Earth: Alien Meteors, Icy Comets, or Solar Wind?
A virtual talk hosted by the SETI Institute
Modest equipment became a tool for obtaining ultra-deep images that could capture the outskirts of nearby massive galaxies and survey vast areas of the sky with unprecedented depth. This enabled a new type of collaboration between world-class amateur astroimagers and international teams of professional astronomers exploring one of the fundamental questions in modern astrophysics: How did massive galaxies like our Milky Way come to be?
From the February 2021 Issue
Advances in our understanding of galaxy formation aren’t just coming from large, professional telescopes.
There will be public planetarium shows at the David M. Brown Planetarium on March 18 and 19.
Tickets are available online at https://friendsoftheplanetarium.ticketleap.com
There will also be a limited number of tickets available at the door for each program.
We hope to see you there!
Just over a year ago, a trio of astronomers set a record for the most distant object ever discovered in the solar system. In recent years, the same group of researchers have uncovered a handful of other extremely distant bodies. And, much to their surprise, they have determined many of these objects make their closest approach to the Sun, or reach perihelion, at about the same point in space.
The researchers believe this growing list of clustered objects — which FarOut is suspected to be a part of — is the best evidence yet for the existence of an elusive world lurking in the outer fringes of our solar system. A world called Planet Nine.
A slew of oddly orbiting objects seems to suggest a massive and as yet unseen world is skulking in the outer reaches of our solar system.
In an attempt to optimize communication in space across vast distances, a team of researchers from the University of Arizona will rely on a unique antenna for CatSat, a small satellite that will study the ionosphere. The antenna resembles a space-age beachball that can beam information to Earth at high speeds.
University of Arizona students are behind CatSat, a cereal box-sized satellite that will probe the ionosphere and beam data to Earth with an inflatable antenna.
The forensic analysis of a potential signal from another civilization reveals how challenging the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is likely to become.
In the search for life on other Earths, astrobiologists should look for signs of photosynthesis, say scientists.
Published: Friday, February 24, 2023
In the search for life on other Earths, astrobiologists should look for signs of photosynthesis, say scientists.
Astronomers designed the CARMENES instrument to find Earth-size planets in their habitable zones. And it has delivered. Since it came online in 2016, it has resulted in a flurry of exciting results.
The CARMENES consortium is now celebrating its first five years of operations with the publication of visible-light measurements for more than 350 stars in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A planet-hunting consortium is marking five successful years by releasing data on more than 50 worlds.
Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy. The finding, published today in the journal Nature, reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an electrical current. This finding opens the way to create devices that literally make energy from thin air.
Australian scientists have discovered an enzyme that converts air into energy. The finding, published today in the journal Nature, reveals that this enzyme uses the low amounts of the hydrogen in the atmosphere to create an electrical current. This finding opens the way to create devices that litera...
James Webb February 2023 Highlights
Ancient Galaxies: https://bit.ly/3SRo8oN
Milky Way's Twin: https://bit.ly/3Z6QYn7
Asteroid: https://go.nasa.gov/3ZL79GX
For decades, astronomers have watched a mysterious blob named X7 drift around the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, wondering where it came from.
The “Tucson Triangle” is the greatest collection of scopes and spectrographs in the continental U.S. The dry air and mountainous terrain around Tucson make this power trio the core of optical astronomy in the continental U.S.
From the February 2023 Issue
The “Tucson Triangle” is the greatest collection of scopes and spectrographs in the continental U.S.
Getting closer to the exact value of the electron magnetic moment – simply put, how strongly an electron behaves like a tiny magnet – might one day unlock a greater understanding of the building blocks of physics and how they interact.
The Standard Model of particle physics is our current best-guess on what the blue-prints for matter looks like.
The Sun has been on an absolute wild roll lately, and one of the results of its continued activity is some spectacular aurora activity.
The last days of February were marked by bands of green light undulating across the high latitude skies. But those of us down on the planet's surface weren't the only ones to enjoy these stunning light-shows.
Hundreds of kilometers above our planet, astronauts were also enjoying the rare sight of the auroras from a unique perspective.
The Sun has been on an absolute wild roll lately, and one of the results of its continued activity is some spectacular aurora activity.
At just 500 years old and spinning at 1.4 rotations per second, this magnetic neutron star is even more exotic than previously thought.
Published: Monday, January 18, 2021
At just 500 years old and spinning at 1.4 rotations per second, this magnetic neutron star is even more exotic than previously thought.
Astronomers have found a new comet! They’ve labeled it C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). And it’s something to look forward to, as it makes its closest approach to the sun (its perihelion) more than a year from now. So, the bad news is it’s not until 2024! But the good news is that early estimates of the comet’s brightness suggest it’ll be bright!
Perihelion for this comet will come on September 28, 2024. At that point, some estimates are suggesting it might be around magnitude 0.7. That brightness rivals some of the brightest stars in the sky.
Astronomers have found a new comet! They’ve labeled it C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS). And it’s something to look forward to, as it makes its closest approach to the sun (its perihelion) more than a year from now. So, the bad news is it’s not until 2024! But the good news is that early estimate...
Scientists have discovered something unexpected while studying masers around oddball star MWC 349A: a previously unseen jet of material launching from the star's gas disk at impossibly high speeds. The team, based at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, believes the jet is caused by strong magnetic forces surrounding the star.
Seattle, WA – Scientists have discovered something unexpected while studying masers around oddball star MWC 349A: a previously unseen jet of material launching from the star's gas disk at impossibly high speeds. The team, based at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, believes the j...
The same forces that produce dazzling displays of light above Jupiter’s poles also pack some serious heat.
Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2021
The same forces that produce dazzling displays of light above Jupiter’s poles also pack some serious heat.
On this day in 1969, the first Concorde supersonic transport, Concorde 001, made its maiden flight. The Concorde flew thousands of passengers across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound for over 25 years. Designed and built by Aérospatiale of France and the British Aircraft Corporation, the graceful Concorde was a stunning technological achievement that could not overcome serious economic problems.
Using laser-propelled lightsails, tiny spacecraft could venture to the Sun’s nearest neighbor in just a few decades.
Published: Thursday, June 17, 2021
Using laser-propelled lightsails, tiny spacecraft could venture to the Sun’s nearest neighbor in just a few decades.
The exciting story behind the discovery of radioactivity!
On March 1, 1896, the world of science was revolutionized when French physicist Henri Becquerel made a serendipitous discovery while studying phosphorescent materials. While investigating X-rays, which had recently been discovered by Wilhelm Roentgen, Becquerel hypothesized that phosphorescent uranium salts might absorb sunlight and re-emit it as X-rays. To test this, he placed crystals of uranium salts on photographic plates wrapped in black paper and exposed the setup to the sun. When he developed the plates, he observed an outline of the crystals and blackening of the plates, which he initially thought was evidence of his hypothesis.
However, when the weather in Paris prevented further experimentation, he put the uranium salts and photographic plates away in a drawer. On March 1, when he finally retrieved them, he was surprised to see a clear image of the crystals on the photographic plates. He realized he had observed something spectacular that had nothing to do with phosphorescence. The uranium salts emitted some invisible radiation, which was given the name “Becquerel Rays.”
This accidental discovery of radioactivity led to further research by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, who discovered two other elements with similar properties: polonium and radium. In 1903, Becquerel and the Curies were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their groundbreaking work in radioactivity. This discovery paved the way for numerous scientific and medical applications, including cancer treatments and nuclear power.
From the Big Bang to dark energy, knowledge of the cosmos has sped up in the past century — but big questions linger.
The coolest new space pictures: February 2023
This month's featured image is a small asteroid burning up in Earth’s atmosphere, captured by a photographer in the right place at the right time.
Since beaming back its first iconic pictures, JWST has offered a never-before-seen perspective of the cosmos. Here's how it snaps the shots that take your breath away.
Physics Term of the Day (30/12/2022)
The Exoplanet Watch project invites you to use your smartphone or personal telescope to help track worlds outside our solar system.
More than 5,000 planets have been confirmed to exist outside our solar system, featuring a wide array of characteristics like clouds made of glass and twin suns. Scientists estimate there could be millions more exoplanets in our home galaxy alone, which means professional astronomers could use your help tracking and studying them.
The Exoplanet Watch project invites you to use your smartphone or personal telescope to help track worlds outside our solar system.
1426 N Quincy Street
Arlington, VA
22207
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Friends of Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Send a message to Friends of Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium:
During the next couple of weeks you will need to set your alarm clock extra early to see 5 planets lined up in the sky before dawn.
Galaxies are collections of billions of stars. While galaxies exist in various shapes, one of the most recognizable and visually impressive is the spiral galaxy - such as our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Join the Friends of Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium for an online presentation by Dr. Sethanne Howard. She will talk about the structure of spiral galaxies, and how tidal triggering is important to that structure.
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) will be the first-ever space mission to demonstrate asteroid deflection by kinetic impactor. On September 26, 2022, the DART spacecraft will impact the moon of the binary asteroid system Didymos, changing that moon's orbit. Dr. Matthew Knight will give an overview of the mission and discuss his involvement in precisely determining the moon's orbit both before and after the impact. Matthew Knight is an assistant professor of physics at the U.S. Naval Academy. He received his PhD in astronomy from the University of MD, and has worked at the Lowell Observatory and the University of MD before moving to the USNA. He studies comets, asteroids, interstellar objects, and other small bodies in the solar system.
There are currently over 43,000 objects launched by humans in orbit around the Earth. Only about 5,400 of these objects are active satellites. The remainder are what is called orbital or space debris: inactive satellites, rocket bodies, pieces of spacecraft, etc. Where did all this debris came from, what is the risk to active satellites from debris, how do we get rid of existing debris and how can we minimize the creation of future debris? With the planned launch of 100,000 new satellites into low Earth orbit, how can astronomers minimize the challenges posed by all these new satellites?
Dr Sethanne Howard returns to talk about early astronomy and the people who practiced it.
Join the Friends of Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium for a live online presentation! Astrophotographer Kevin Quin will show how digital imaging has transformed astronomy and describe the imaging techniques employed by amateur astronomers. In the process he'll take the audience on a photographic tour of the cosmos, from our solar system to the edge of the universe.
Black Holes are interesting and strange things. We cannot see them, but we know they are there. So, what do we know about them and how do we know it? Join us online and learn about black holes! Dr Sethanne Howard will present this online talk about how black holes are built, what it is like to visit one, and how they can dance.
Chaco Canyon National Historic Park, located in the high desert of northwestern New Mexico, is a renowned dark-sky site. Dr. Alice Monet recently spent nearly a week in Chaco Canyon and was astonished by the brilliance of the stars and other celestial objects. During her visit she explored some of the ancient ruins of the Chacoan culture and listened to local experts discuss the archeology, cultural heritage, and scientific accomplishments of the people who built and lived in Chaco 1,000 years ago. In this talk she will share some of what she observed and learned.
Founded in 2010 to save the Planetarium from being closed, Friends of Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that continues to raise funds to make the Planetarium even better, and to support Arlington Public Schools in providing enhanced science education in Arlington County. The Friends of Arlington’s David M. Brown Planetarium has an all-volunteer Board of Directors and Advisory Council.
Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington
Wilson BoulevardThe Black Heritage Museum of Arlington
Columbia PikeGeorgetown University Diplomatic Ball
Washington D.C. 20057
Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington
Wilson Boulevard
The Black Heritage Museum of Arlington
Columbia Pike
Qougogbinfuaudgeproctraxperwaucqtunctoledopwu
Washington. Dc