Author Archives: Geoff Robertson

Live Stream the December 14th, 2020 Total Solar Eclipse

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On Deember 14th a Total Solar Eclipse will be visible in southern Chile and Argentina.

Total solar eclipse

While we can’t be there to see it live there will be a number of live video streams set up along the path of totality.

Below are a couple links you can access to witness the eclipse as it happens.

https://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse

 

This occurs in the morning hours Edmonton time. Maximum eclipse is at 9:13:28 MST, Times at the live stream sights will vary.

RASC Edmonton Regular Meeting: December 14, 2020

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RASC Edmonton Online Meeting

Monday December 14th, 7:30PM MST

Zoom Meeting Format. Use the link below to join the meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89417145494

Featured Speaker

Dr. Tyrone Woods:

Titans of the Early Universe: The birth of the first black holes

 

At the heart of every galaxy lies a giant—a supermassive black hole anywhere from millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun. Our understanding of these mysterious objects is growing quickly;  last year, the first image of a black hole was released by the Event Horizon Telescope, and this year the Nobel prize was awarded in part for the discovery of a supermassive black hole at the centre of our own Galaxy. Many basic questions remain unanswered, however, including how these black holes formed in the first place, and how they became so staggeringly massive. In this talk, I’ll show how the recent revelation that black holes a billion times the mass of the Sun already existed during the first billion years of cosmic history presents a stark challenge to our understanding of how they formed, and I’ll highlight the recent and upcoming efforts in Canada to unravel the mysterious origins of these primordial titans.

RASC Edmonton Regular Meeting: November 9, 2020

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RASC Edmonton Online Meeting

Monday November 9th, 2020. 7:30 PM MST

Zoom Meeting Format. Use the link below to join the meeting.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87546996671

Meeting ID: 875 4699 6671

Featured Speaker: Dr. Brenda Matthews 

“Birth and evolution of debris disks: Windows into planetary systems”

Debris disks were identified relatively recently in astronomical terms, by the first all-sky infrared survey satellite IRAS. These interesting objects are continually created in planetary systems, both old and young, via collisions of comets and asteroids in orbit around stars.  The collisions create newly visible dusty disks, often detectable many millions of years after the dispersion of the protoplanetary disks which typify the youngest phases of star and planet formation.  I will describe what we understand about the origins, evolution and structure of these disks, as well as their role in planetary systems. Recent discoveries suggest they may be inexorably linked to the earliest phases of planet formation. Finally I will discuss some of the more esoteric examples of these disks which can show remarkable variability over relatively short periods of time.