SVAstronomyLectures
Founded in 1999, the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are presented on six Wednesday evenings during each school year at Foothill College, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Speakers over the years have included a wide range of noted scientists, explaining astronomical developments in everyday language. A generous donation by one of our supporters is now enabling us to record the lectures and make them freely available to the public on the Web. The series is organized and moderated by Foothill's astronomy instructor emeritus Andrew Fraknoi and jointly sponsored by the Foothill College Physical Science, Math, and Engineering Division, the SETI Institute, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the University of California Observatories (including the Lick Observatory), (all of whose links you can find below).
SVAstronomyLectures
https://youtu.be/p15xdKffgbs
9 months ago | [YT] | 1
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SVAstronomyLectures
Next Lecture March 5th is in-person at the Smithwick Theater in Los Altos Hills, CA
Lecture will be uploaded a few days after to the channel.
On Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2025 at 7 pm (PST), Dr. Simon Steel (SETI Institute) will give a free, illustrated, non-technical lecture entitled:
"Copernicus 4.0:
How Our Views of Earth's Importance and the Search for Life are Changing"
9 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 8
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SVAstronomyLectures
Our new lecture is live!
10 months ago | [YT] | 2
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SVAstronomyLectures
A new season starts next week!
2 years ago | [YT] | 0
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SVAstronomyLectures
The Eclipse Double-Header: Two U.S. Eclipses of the Sun in 2023 & 2024
Talk will be held May 10, 7 p.m. in the Smithwick Theater at Foothill College. Everyone attending this lecture will receive a free pair of certified eclipse-viewing glasses courtesy of the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. We ask that attendees be vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 and wear a mask while indoors at the event. Extra masks will be provided. Parking is free during spring quarter 2023!
Two eclipses of the Sun are coming to North America during the 2023-24 school year – an annular (“ring of fire”) eclipse Oct. 14, 2023 and a total eclipse Apr. 8, 2024. People in two narrow paths will have the full eclipse experience each time. Everyone else (an estimated 500 million people, including all of us in the Bay Area) will see a nice partial eclipse, where the Moon covers a good part of the Sun. The talk will describe how eclipses come to be (and why only on Earth), what scientists learn during eclipses, exactly when and where the eclipses of 2023 and 2024 will be best visible, and how to observe the eclipses and the Sun safely.
The talk is part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series, now in its 23rd year.
2 years ago | [YT] | 0
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SVAstronomyLectures
Our latest talk, on the first results from the James Webb Space Telescope, is now up on the SVAstronomyLectures YouTube channel, at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te2zS...
Dr. Alex Filippenko, one of the best speakers in modern astronomy, gives a wonderful introduction to the capabilities and first discoveries of this long-awaited, and already surprisingly successful, new instrument in space.
2 years ago | [YT] | 2
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SVAstronomyLectures
Check out our next live streamed lecture on October 19, 2022 is @7pm pacific
3 years ago | [YT] | 14
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SVAstronomyLectures
Dr. Michelle Thaller spoke on planetary habitability and how NASA is exploring other worlds to help us understand our own.
3 years ago | [YT] | 5
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SVAstronomyLectures
New Lecture available! Some amazing questions answered at the end of the presentation.
4 years ago | [YT] | 0
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SVAstronomyLectures
Today, the search for intelligent, civilization-building life in the Universe is undergoing a profound renewal. Thanks to the discovery of thousands of planets orbiting other stars, the introduction of new observing technologies, and increased support from both public and private sectors, a new science of searching for “techno-signatures” is emerging.
In this talk Dr. Frank will unpack this frontier area, discussing what counts as a techno-signature; how to be systematic in thinking about exo-civilizations and their evolution; what techno-signatures can tell us about our own future. He believes that within the next few decades we will likely have actual data relevant to the question life, perhaps even the intelligent kind, in the Universe.
4 years ago | [YT] | 3
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