Insights into the Interplay of Science & Art
Dario Robleto & Frank Summers

Houston artist Dario Robleto’s “Setlists for a Setting Sun” is on view in the Contemporary Wing of the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) through March 29, 2015. This exhibition weaves together the histories of recorded light and sound in a body of poetic sculptures, prints, and cut-paper works. The show debuts three works inspired in part by the BMA’s proximity to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).

As a special collaboration between these two Baltmore institutions, Robleto will present a BMA Artist Talk as part of the STScI Public Lecture Series. He will delve into the cross-pollination of art and science – including the ways in which imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope, celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2015, has influenced Robleto and the works featured in the exhibition. In counterpoint, STScI astronomer Frank Summers will explore the scientific properties of light, space, and time that not only underscore the artistic depth, but also expose the mind-bending realities within Einstein’s theory of relativity.

Hosted by Kristen Hileman, BMA Curator of Contemporary Art. Recorded live on March 3, 2015 at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD, USA

For more information: http://hubblesite.org/about_us/public_talks/

Nearly 500 million miles from the Sun lies a moon orbiting Jupiter that is slightly larger than the planet Mercury and may contain more water than all of Earth’s oceans. Temperatures are so cold, though, that water on the surface freezes as hard as rock and the ocean lies roughly 100 miles below the crust. Nevertheless where there is water there could be life as we know it.

Identifying liquid water on other worlds – big or small – is crucial in the search for habitable planets beyond Earth. Though the presence of an ocean on Ganymede has been long-predicted based on theoretical models, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found the best circumstantial evidence for it. Hubble was used to watch aurorae glowing above the moon’s icy surface. The aurorae are tied the moon’s magnetic field which descends right down to the core of Ganymede. A saline ocean would influence the dynamics of the magnetic field as it interacts with Jupiter’s own immense magnetic field that engulfs Ganymede.

Because telescopes can’t look inside planets or moons, tracing the magnetic field through aurorae is a unique way to probe the interior of another world.

Read more here:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2015/09

Please join +Tony Darnell Dr. +Carol Christian and +Scott Lewis as they discuss these observations with the science team.
25th Anniversary Page:
http://hubble25th.org

Final moments for submissions to +European Space Agency, ESA’s #OdeToHubble  competitions can be found here: http://www.spacetelescope.org/Hubble25/odetohubble/ 

#Hubble25 #Hubble #HubbleHangout  

Bring your questions and comments and we’ll read them on air throughout the hangout!

#Space   #Astronomy   #Hubble   #STEM   #jupiter #ganymede

It’s that time again, time for +Tony Darnell and Dr.+Frank Summers  to get together and fill you in on all the latest science and happenings from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hope you can all make it, please bring your questions and comments!

Ode to Hubble Video Contest:
http://spacetelescope.org/announcements/ann1505/

Hubble Mania:
http://hubble25th.org/go/HubbleMania

Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute and the
Johns Hopkins University, both in Baltimore, Maryland, have
created a new master catalog of astronomical objects called
the Hubble Source Catalog. The catalog provides one-stop
shopping for measurements of objects observed with NASA’s
Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble has amassed a rich legacy of images and other
scientific data over its 25 years of exploring the universe.
All of the images are stored in the computer-based Barbara A.
Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST), which
astronomers use for their research. The archive is
bursting with more than a million images, which contain
roughly 100 million small sources ranging from distant
galaxies to compact star clusters to individual stars. For
astronomers, however, a major challenge is the difficulty
involved with sifting through the archival gold mine to
collect the data they want to analyze. The Hubble Source
Catalog now allows astronomers to perform a computer
search for characteristics of these sources, receiving
information within seconds or minutes.

The Hubble Source Catalog is a database from which astronomers
can obtain the Hubble measurements of specific astronomical
objects they want to investigate. A query to this database
can take just seconds or minutes, while previously it might
have required a few months of hard work by searching
separate files throughout the archive. This capability
promises to open the door to exciting new areas of research
with Hubble that otherwise might have been too cumbersome
to tackle.
Read more here:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2015/07

Please join +Tony Darnell Dr.+Carol Christian and +Scott Lewis as they discuss the new release of this powerful database with astronomers from the Space Telescope Science Institute.

25th Anniversary Page:
http://hubble25th.org

Final moments for submissions to +European Space Agency, ESA’s#OdeToHubble  competitions can be found here: http://www.spacetelescope.org/Hubble25/odetohubble/ 

#Hubble25 #Hubble #HubbleHangout  

Bring your questions and comments and we’ll read them on air throughout the hangout!

#Space   #Astronomy   #Hubble   #STEM   #jupiter #ganymede

Astronomers using observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and +NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory  have found that dark matter interacts with itself even less than previously thought by researchers. This finding narrows down the options for what this mysterious substance might be.

By finding that dark matter interacts with itself even less than previously thought, the team has successfully narrowed down the properties of dark matter. Particle physics theorists have to keep looking, but they now have a smaller set of unknowns to work with when building their models.

Please join +Tony Darnell Dr.+Carol Christian  and +Scott Lewis  as they discuss these amazing observations with the team that made them along with special guest Dr.+Katie Mack 

Ode to Hubble Contest Voting is still going on, cast your vote here!
http://spacetelescope.org/announcements/ann1505/

Quarterfinals for #HubbleMania also going on:
http://hubble25th.org/go/HubbleMania

NASA’s One Year Crew:
http://www.nasa.gov/oneyear/

“What is our place in the Universe?” Throughout human history, astronomy has repeatedly overthrown our understanding of this question and new telescopes and astronomers continue to do so. Join Jason Kalirai of the Space Telescope Science Institute as he explores 6,000 years of human astronomy, showcases the biggest discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, including some of his own work, and ponders current mysteries of the Universe that may be unlocked by NASA’s next flagship telescopes.

Join Hubble astronomers for an online exploration of the remarkable history and still-bright future of a telescope that has transformed both the way we do astronomy and our understanding of the universe. Discover the trials and triumphs of NASA’s first Great Observatory, learn about some of its remarkable scientific achievements, and experience a compendium of some of the greatest imagery the universe has ever known. Our featured speaker is Dr. +Frank Summers, outreach astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute.

For more information about the Hubble National Teach-In, including how to be part of the Nationwide Galaxy Count, visit: http://hubble25th.org/go/Teach-In

Most galaxies have at their cores a supermassive black hole hundreds of millions of times the mass of our Sun.  They emit powerful ultraviolet radiation from the  supermassive black hole at the core of the host galaxy.

The most active of these galaxy cores are called quasars, where infalling material is heated to a point where a brilliant searchlight shines into deep space. The beam is produced by a disk of glowing, superheated gas encircling the black hole.

Please join +Tony Darnell Dr.+Carol Christian and +Scott Lewis as they discuss some fascinating new observations of quasars made by the Hubble Space Telescope

Read more here:
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/13/

http://hubble25th.org

#Hubble25 featured in Spaceport magazine:

Latest episode of Hubblecast, Hubble meets JWST:

#Hubble25

The James Webb Space Telescope is comprised of some very large structures, and those have to fit together before, during, and after launch. Extreme care has to be taken when moving equipment that weighs thousands of pounds. This episode of Behind the Webb gives us a glimpse into what it takes to test the compatibility between the backplane that will hold the primary mirror segments, the sunshield, and the spacecraft bus. We also see how the sunshield will be pulled into position, giving us a sense of how large the observatory will be when it’s in orbit.

The 21-foot-wide primary mirror of the Webb Telescope is so large that it will have to fold up to fit into a rocket and be launched to space. Join host Mary Estacion as she travels to ATK in Magna, Utah, where the mirror’s foldable backplane “wings” have been constructed.

“Behind the Webb” is an ongoing series that follows the construction of the Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s successor. Find more episodes at Hubblesite.org.

“Behind the Webb” archive:
http://webbtelescope.org/webb_telescope/behind_the_webb/archive/