USM Southworth Planetarium

From the USM Southworth Planetarium
“Where the Sun doesn’t shine”

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
July 13, 2011
Neptune Part II

******************************************
So, here’s a contrary shout out to those of us who often proclaim, “Who needs editers!”
In yesterday’s article, I once listed Neptune’s discovery year as 1843, when, of course, it should have read
1846. I want to thank the Pluto lady for kindly pointing out the error.
*******************************************************

September 23/24, 1846:
Johann Galle and Heinrich D’Arrest discovered the eighth planet, Neptune. They sought this world at the behest of French astronomer Urbainn Le Verrier who suspected that an unknown planet was causing the observed perturbations in Uranus’ orbit. Le Verrier had devoted months to the meticulous calculations required to demonstrate that a more distant world exerted enough of a gravitational influence on Uranus to shift its position away from predicted locations. Despite his ardent efforts, Le Verrier’s proposal was received indifferently by French Academy members, who dismissed his work as being a sophomoric product of youth and inexperience. Undeterred, Le Verrier sent a letter detailing his findings to Galle and D’Arrest at the Berlin Observatory. The two astronomers promptly conducted a search and found the hypothesized planet within only one hour. Moreover, the eighth world was merely one degree away from the position Le Verrier assumed it was currently occupying. They immediately dispatched a letter to Le Verrier explaining that they had found the planet!

France was jubilant for one of their own had discovered a new planet. It was cause for celebration throughout the country and even amongst the shame-faced members of the French Academy. Moreover, Le Verrier’s work confirmed that Isaac Newton’s gravitational law was applicable to the outer solar system and, perhaps, through the entire Universe! One would have thought that the young French astronomer’s discovery would have therefore been similarly celebrated in Newton’s home country, Britain. However, apart from being congratulatory toward its neighbor across the Channel, Britain was unimpressed. As it turned out, one of their own astronomers, John Couch Adams, had performed calculations similar to those of Le Verrier and produced the same result. Therefore, British astronomer John Couch Adams deserved the distinction as the true planet discoverer according to his new best friend, Astronomer Royale George Airy.

The French were inflamed by the British (not the first time.) Suddenly, two countries that had a long history of conflicts started fighting (verbally) over a scientific issue: Who was the eighth planet’s true discoverer? Both men enjoyed their fair share of advocates although it seems that the two astronomers distanced themselves from the debate. Each one respected and acknowledged the other’s findings. Some said that Le Verrier deserved the planet discoverer distinction for he had invested months of intensive work on the enterprise, as evidenced by the remarkable results. Still others insisted that Adams was likewise indefatigable in his pursuit. We can safely assume that both men possessed the tenacity that the completion of such complex calculations required. Where Le Verrier surpassed Adams, perhaps, was in his ability to compel other astronomers to conduct the search. Adams did not promote his ideas as vigorously as Le Verrier did. Consequently, Le Verrier found two astronomers willing to search for the planet.*

That the eighth planet bore Le Verrier’s name is evidence that most authorities extended him the credit for its discovery. Though originally called “the planet beyond Uranus.” it was soon named Le Verrier, a name that was popular in France, but not elsewhere. By International Agreement (France apart), the eighth world was called “Neptune,” after the Roman God of the Ocean. They chose this name because Neptune exhibited a distinct blue color. Even though we know today that gases within the planet are responsible for this coloration, Neptune’s hue was reminiscent of water. Hence, the association with Neptune.

Neptune is a gas giant world, nearly 58 times larger in volume than Earth. Unlike Earth, Neptune has no solid surface, only a rocky core buried under thousands of miles of hydrogen, some of it gaseous and some of it liquefied under high pressure. As it is so distant, it is one of the least studied planets. Only when the Voyager probe fly by Neptune in 1989 did we gain a close view of this frigid, yet furiously active and wind-powered world.

We can’t see Neptune without a telescope, so it is hardly mentioned in these articles. Yet, we give it due notice today for it has just started its next orbit: one it will complete around 2176 A.D. Happy orbiting!

From the USM Southworth Planetarium
“Diluted competence”

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
July 12, 2011
Neptune Part I

Today, Neptune completes its first orbit since discovery. Finally! Discovered by astronomers Johann Galle and Heinrch D’Arrest on September 23/24, 1843, Neptune has required all this time to finish one circuit around the Sun. For those who are tabulating, that time amounts to 164.79 Earth years. That Neptune should need so many years for just one go around is understandable if we consider a few facts. First, Neptune’s orbital path is quite long: more than seventeen billion miles! Secondly, being an outer planet, Neptune moves more slowly than the inner worlds. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) ascertained that a planet’s distance determines its orbital velocity. The closer a planet is to the Sun, the faster it moves. Whereas Earth’s orbital speed is a swift 67,000 miles per hour, Neptune travels at a far more prudent 12,000 miles per hour.* Though breakneck by non-New Jersey standards, this trot is lethargic relative to some worlds. Hence, the 164.79 year orbit.

Today and tomorrow, we celebrate Neptune’s accomplishment. Today, we examine the events preceding its discovery for, as it turns out, those events not only resulted in the finding of a new world, it also verified Newton’s mathematical gravity model: a model that we take for granted today, but which was disputed and even dismissed by some more than a century and a half ago.

To thoroughly discuss Neptune’s discovery, we must begin with Isaac Newton’s (1643-1727) magnum opus, the Principia (published 1687) in which he introduced the Universal Law of Gravitation. This law states that every massive object attracts every other massive object. The magnitude of the gravitational force exerted between two objects is proportional to the masses of both and inversely proportional to the square of their separation distance. Let’s say you have two asteroids, Bert and Harriet. The attraction between them depends on how massive they each are. The heavier they are, the more attractive they become. However, if they float away from each other, their attraction is diminished and, quite quickly because of that “square of the distance” factor. If their separation distance doubles, their gravitational attraction is reduced to one-quarter of its original value. This is the essence of Newton’s law. One reason that Isaac’s model was so monumental is that it described both celestial motions (orbiting moons) and terrestrial phenomena (falling apples) as being manifestations of a single force. In effect, the gravitation law was the first “unified” force theory. This law enabled physicists (then called natural philosophers) to predict the positions and velocities of Earth bound objects and the known planets. In 1687, humans knew of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The sixth world defined the solar system’s outer boundary, at least by 17th century reckoning. And, astronomers employing Newton’s principles found that planetary motions conformed quite pleasantly with this newly crafted law.

Let’s advance to March 13, 1781, when musician/astronomer William Herschel inadvertently discovered that the solar system extended beyond Saturn. While searching for comets, a favored target for astronomers, Herschel cited an object that initially resembled a star. When he viewed it through greater magnification, its apparent diameter increased. As one does not observe such enlargement in stars, Herschel concluded, to his astonishment, that he found “a new planet!” Soon, other astronomers verified the find and Herschel became humanity’s first planet discoverer. The seventh planet was soon named Uranus, after Saturn’s ill-fated father.** Over the next eighty four years, astronomers observed Uranus’ motion and determined that its predicted orbit did not precisely correspond to its actual orbit. Sometimes Uranus was farther ahead in its orbit than it should have been. At other times, it lagged behind. Since they predicated their predictions on Newton’s law, some astronomers wondered if Isaac’s model was perhaps limited: valid only in regions relatively close to the Sun. Maybe Newton’s law did not apply to deep space! If it didn’t, our ability to study remote objects such as stars would be profoundly curtailed.

So, we fast forward to 1821, when the astronomer Alexis Bouvard produced a table of Uranus’ position. He noted the significant deviations between the seventh planet’s observed and predicted positions. A staunch Newton defender, Bouvard hypothesized that the law was correct, but that Uranus was influenced by a hitherto undiscovered world farther out in space. However, he did not pursue this idea and left it as a possible explanation for why Uranus exhibited such “perturbations.” It would be left to a young French astronomer Urbainn Le Verrier (1811-1877) and a young British astronomer John Couch Adams (1819-1892) to hash out the details. Working independently, both Le Verrier and Adams used Newton’s mathematical model to predict both the existence and changing positions of the hypothesized eighth planet. By analyzing how Uranus’ position varied from predictions along its path, both astronomers determined the approximate location of what would then have been considered planet X. These two men, who were unacquainted during this time period, were both mathematical astronomers: those who believed that one could describe astronomical realities with the apparently abstract tool of mathematics. A radical idea that seems self-evident today. Both men were also young, inexperienced and unconnected. So, when they approached their respective scientific authorities with their findings, each enjoyed a cool reception. British Astronomer Royale, George Airy (1801-1892), initially dismissed Adam’s notion of an eighth world.
Meanwhile, Urbainn Le Verrier presented his findings to the French Academy at the end of August 1846. There, as well, the skeptical audience offered a muted reaction to the findings of an unaccomplished upstart. However, not only did Le Verrrier offer his calculations to the French Academy, he also sent them in a letter to astronomers Johanne Galle (1812 – 1910) and Heinrich D’Arrest (1822-1875) who were both on staff at the Berlin Observatory. Within less than a week, Galle and D’Arrest received the letter and decided to search for this “new world.” Le Verrier included his own predictions as to its location, thereby giving the two astronomers a specific region to search. Fortunately, the observatory had recently updated their charts of many areas in the sky, including the place where Le Verrier believed they would find this planet. By comparing the star charts to the current sky, Galle and D’Arrest were able to find the planet within one hour! An excited Galle wrote to Le Verrier at once, announcing that the planet did, indeed exist.

Le Verrier’s discovery was soon celebrated throughout France, for a native son extended the solar system’s bounds even further by finding the eighth world. The reaction in Britain, however, was less jubilant. And, as we’ll learn tomorrow, Neptune’s discovery precipitated yet another conflict between these two mutually antagonistic countries.

*These values are approximations. Both Neptune and Earth revolve along elliptical orbits. Therefore, their distances vary and so, too, do their orbital speeds.

**Herschel did not select this name, but instead called it Georgium Sidus, “George’s Star” in honor of King George III. Unfortunately, this name proved unpopular in most places outside of Britain (particularly in the still war-embittered United States). Ultimately, the planet was named Uranus at the behest of Johannes Bode, who believed that a mythological name would be the most appropriate. By the mid-19th century, all almanacs, even British ones, listed “Uranus” as the seventh planet’s name. So, yes, middle school teachers who are tired of the snickers, it’s not Herschel’s fault.

From the USM Southworth Planetarium
“The bronzed guy has trouble viewing Colorado’s border markers. In other words, the tan gent can’t see the CO signs.”

THE DAILY ASTRONOMER
July 11, 2011
The Impossible Assignment

“How is this astronomical?”
“What is she, nuts?”
“To hell with this!”
“And, of course it’s 90 degrees today and we’re in here.”
“What is she, kidding?”
“I don’t think this is possible.”

I made that last statement, to the chagrin and amusement of the receding gray hair (who spoke first), the scraggly beard (who questioned Dr. Evergreen’s sanity), the public radio tote bag (she said ‘Hell’), the bead necklace who told us the temperature, and the Sox Cap who spoke just before I did. (He was also the one who snidely said, “Ya think?” after I made my profound pronouncement.)

All six of us stood dumbfounded in the fourth floor classroom. We had been there for awhile, staring hopelessly at a pyramid of empty boxes arranged neatly in the room’s center. (All the chairs were arranged circularly around them.) It resemled a cardboard wedding cake. We counted five boxes in a stack and each one was slightly larger than the box above it. Altogether, the box pyramid reached five feet, enabling everyone except for the bead necklace to look down at it easily. Two slightly curled-up Post-it-notes, taped together so as to make a larger writing surface, rested on the box stack. The note read, “Fit these in the red box in the corner.” Finding that box wasn’t easy, as it was so infuriatingly tiny: just big enough, or so the Red Sox Cap determined, to accommodate two cigarette packs.

“What do we do?” Bead necklace asked, looking a bit frightened. “We only have half an hour.”

I should explain that this task was an assignment Dr. Evergreen gave to us earlier. Dr. Evergreen was the shape-shifting professor of the newly fashioned “Astronomical Geometry” course. It was one of those fusion courses combining two somewhat-related disciplines. We called her the “shape shifter” because her appearance varied drastically from one class to the next. Not only her clothes (the first class she wore biker chains, the second a gym suit; the next she sported a gingham pinafore), but her hair style, eye color voice and, amazingly, height and weight. Having earned degrees in theatre as well as mathematics, she was passionate about characters and assumed a different one each time. Such alterations required platform shoes, protesthics and a variety of other costume accessories. As she explained to us during the class in which she stood before us masquerading as Hypathia, “living a thousand lives in fragments is the only way to live my life.” And, as Dr. Evergreen was quite good at changing her voice, appearance and behaviour, most of us looked forward to class if for nothing else than for the entertainment value. The amusement almost made up for the exhaustion, as we moved constantly in her class, working out this problem and that one, for she preferred real world exercises and applications to what she called the “droll lecture format.”

We never quite knew what to expect in each class.
A perfect example was, well, the day in which six of us ended up standing around a box pyramid. The entire class had earlier been in the room, impatiently waiting for Dr. Evergreen to arrive. It was actually more crowded that usual. Not a surprise. Some students had recently taken to bringing friends to class to ‘experience Evergreen.’ These visitors seem to increase in number with each class. She was becoming something of an attraction. Yet, she was nowhere to be found when class was supposed to begin. That was a shock, actually, as she promised us she would never be late for class. (So much for professorial promises.) Five minutes later, still nothing but the empty space in front of the chalkboard. We were getting restless and wondering if the day’s session would be cancelled. By the time a few people were preparing to depart, a large, plump-faced man barged into the classroom, causing a few students closest to the door to jerk back in their seats. Without so much as a ‘hello,’ this furious intruder pointed toward the shocked students in the first row. “Room 101!”

“What?” a brave student asked, looking a bit perplexed. The man shouted, “First row students to Room 101!” However, nobody moved, but instead stared frightfully at the quarter-ton terror looming before them. He repeated the command yet again and sounded all the more enraged.

“First row students will report to Room 101 at once!”

At this, another student addressesd the fat man from the safety of the distant corner. “Hello, Dr. Evergreen!”

“His name’s Dr. Bryce, actually,” a young lady said, rising from her seat toward the room’s center. “My former drama coach.”
We watched Dr. Evergreen, completely unrecognizable as a ‘visitor’ with a black wig, move from the desk to the front of the classroom. “Apart from being ruggedly handsome,” Dr. Evergreen announced cheerfully as she approached and then hugged the large man, “Dr. Bryce is a bit of a devil. Loves to go around different classrooms, making students think he’s me. We’re hard to tell apart, you see.”

She moved away from grinning Bryce and addressed the classroom. “You will find different challenges scattered around the building today. Your job is to use your brain to defeat these challenges and perhaps learn something in the process.” She turned to the students in the first row. “As Dr. Bryce hinted, your challenge is in Room 101. Everyone on the first row go there now and follow the instructions you find. Row Two students, please report to Room 201. Row Three, proceed to Room 301. And, you guys in Row Four…”

“401?” Gray hair asked.

“417,” Dr. Evergreen answered. “Kill me if I ever become predicatable.”

So, there we were in Room 417 looking at the box pyramid. After another tense moment, Gray hair walked to the chalkboard. “We might as well try to work it out.”

“How?” Sox cap snapped.

“Geometry, I assume,” Gray hair said softly. “After all, geometry is the point of this class, isn’t it? Certainly isn’t much astronomy in it..”

“What are you going to write on the board for?”

“Making measurements,” Gray replied matter-of-factly. “Let’s just measure the boxes and then see what we can do.”

That is precisely what we did. Well, all except for the public radio tote bag who lingered in the corner looking disgruntled. We brought the little red box over next to the boxes. That made us feel all the worse, of course, for we truly saw how large the pyramid was relative to the red box. Using our rulers, we determined that the largest box was 18 inches along the side; the second was 14; the third was 12, the fourth was 9 and the fifth was 7 inches. The red box measured four inches by two by 1.5.

Gray hair wrote all these numbers on the chalkboard and though his columns were admirably straight, it didn’t seem to help much. As we stood there in despair, Bead Necklace had an inspired idea. “Let’s break the boxes down!” We discovered that, fortunately, the boxes were all empty and could easily be opened. With nothing else for it, we all pulled apart the boxes. Scraggly beard became suddenly elated. He pulled a calculator out of his shirt pocket and hopped to the chalkboard.

“The volume of each box, assuming they’re perfectly cubical,” Scraggly beard interjected pedantically, “is equal to the cube of its side. So, the first box is 5832 cubic inches, the second is 2744; the third 1728; the fourth 729 and the fifth 343. Now, I could add those volumes together, but that would be tedious. Let’s just say that by breaking down the boxes, we’ve eliminated thousands of cubic inches from the problem. They are all now flat, so it’s no longer an issue of volume, but surface area. We have reduced the problem from a cube to a square, for, as you know, the area of a plane is proportional to the square of the side.”

“It won’t help,” Tote Bag protested. ” The cardboard has thickness, so you have to add that to the surface area and to stuff it into the small box, you have to fold it repeatedly. It’s still a volume problem.”

Shraggly Beard shrugged, “Well, maybe in reality it is, but on paper…”

“Look!” Sox Cap said, pointing to the broken-down boxes on the floor. “There’s no way we’re going to fit those into the small box.” He looked over at Shraggly Beard. “Hey, Einstein. Tell us the volume of the small red box.”

“Twelve cubic inches,” he replied proudly as he didn’t require a calculator for that calculation.

Sox Cap looked at us and seemed to deflate. “Twelve cubic inches! Someone explain to me how that will work!”

A minute passed without a reponse, until Bead Necklace stepped forward, her face bright with a sudden fervor. “I have an idea. What do we know about the boxes?” She didn’t wait long for the answers that we didn’t offer. “They’re empty space!”

“Not now that you’ve broken them down,” Gray hair said.

“I don’t mean that,” Necklace answered testily. “I mean that cardboard itself. It is mostly empty space, isn’t it? I mean, microscopically or quantumly, or however you want to say it. There’s hardly any matter there. In fact, if we could squeeze all the matter out of it, like what happens to neutron stars, the boxes would fit. In fact, they’d fit with plenty of room to spare. I even heard that the Empire State Building would be a small marble if all the empty space within its material were removed. Now, if the Empire State Building could fit inside that little box, this cardboard should.”

“And, how,” Gray Hair inquired with a determined calm, “do you propose to produce the forces necessary to compress the boxes down to that small a volume?”

“I saw some bricks outside,” I interjected.

“Neutron stars form because big stars collapse in on themselves,” Beard remarked disdainfully. “You can’t replicate that kind of force with bricks.”

“They’re those large concrete bricks,” I said.

“In theory, your idea could work,” Gray hair gently told Bead Necklace. “But, I am afraid we can’t do it in practise.”

“Unless we find a collapsing star out in the parking lot,” Sox Cap suggested, smirking in response to Necklace’s dark scowl.

Tote Bag stepped forward “What if we can reduce its volume another way?”

Gray hair looked at her. “In what way?”

“Burning,” Tote Bag said, taking a lighter out of her, um, tote bag.

“What is she, nuts?” (Yes, that was Scraggly Beard who said that, yet again.)

“We burn the boxes, reducing it to ashe and then pour the ashes into the small box. We will have made the boxes fit by chemically reducing the cardboard’s volume. Dr. Evergreen encourages us to be creative.”

“Yes,” Sox Cap seethed. “but not to commit arson.”

“We’ll take it outside and burn it. Collect the ashe and bring it back into the classroom. Simple as that.”

“But that won’t fulfill the requirements. The burning will turn some of the cardboard into ashe, but some will become smoke, which we cannot put into the box as it will float away into the atmosphere.” Scraggly beard proved rather insightful about physics.

Tote Bag rounded on him. “Do you have any better ideas?”

Nobody did. We also realized that our time was almost up, so three of us gathered the cardboard boxes into our arms while the others helpfully stood by the treshhold incase the door spontaneously slammed on its own accord. Dr. Evergreen met us in the corridor just outside the classroom.

“May I ask where you genuiuses are taking that?”

“Outside.”

“And why, may I ask?”

Silence. None of us were quite sure how to dress up the phrase “to burn it.”

Finally, Beard said, “We have an idea how to put the boxes into the small box.”

“Really?!” Dr. Evergreen answered, sounding genuinely impressed.

Beard brightened. “Yes!”

Evergreen’s face darkened. “Let’s go back in the classroom and discuss this.”

As though on a death march, we followed Dr. Evergreen into the classroom. She watched us all file back inside. Those of us carrying boxes held onto them while the professor walked into the room’s center. While we observed her fearfully, she picked up the post-it-notes and the small red box from the floor. “Can somebody remind me what these notes said?”

“Aren’t you actually looking at them now?” Beard asked. He then looked down ashen faced in response to Dr. Evergreen’s withering stare.

“It says, ‘Fit these in the red box in the corner.’ Are you sure you read this note carefully?”

“Yes,” Gray hair replied. “I assure you we did.”

“And we’ve spent the last thirty minutes trying to fit these into that small box,” Sox Cap said sharply, as he slapped the boxes.

Dr. Evergreen raised the post-it-notes above her head. “THESE!” She then slid the two post-it-notes into the small red box. “You were supposed to place those two taped notes into the box, not the pyramid of boxes. I was going to use those for something else, but seeing as my brilliant students have torn them up and are hellbent on torching them, I’ll have to find others.”

“You meant the notes?!” Sox Cap shouted, dropping the boxes.

“It’s admirable the way you can grasp the meaning of plainly phrased statements. You all just assumed I meant the boxes. That’s the trick about indefinite pronouns. Never quite sure what they mean. You could have asked, because sometimes creative thinking involves knowing when to ask the right question.”

After letting this soak in, she said. “The secret to success in geometry and astronomy is the same as the secret to success in marriage.” With a wink, she concluded, “Follow directions.”

SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
AUTUMN 2011 COURSE SCHEDULE

The Southworth Planetarium offers three different courses during our
autumn session. Since we’re so excited to begin, we’re starting
our first course in August! We offer beginning courses in astronomy,
mythology and weather. Explore your Universe with the planetarium !

NIGHT SKY MYTHOLOGY
Three Thursday evenings
7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Starting August 25, 2011
A course about the constellations! Spend three Thursday evenings in our
star dome theatre hearing the fascinating stories of the ancient
characters arrayed across the sky.
Cost: $60.00 ($40.00 members)

STAR DOME ASTRONOMY
Six Tuesday evenings
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Starting September 20, 2011
An introductory astronomy course for those who’ve always wanted to
learn about the night sky and Universe but were not sure how to begin.
Each class includes a session in our star dome theatre.
Cost: $60.00 ($40.00 members)

UNDERSTANDING WEATHER
Four Tuesday evenings
7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Starting September 27, 2011
Fascinated by weather? How do weather systems form? How can we
predict the weather? How much do we know about our climate? We invite
you to enroll in this fascinating and fun class about introductory
meteorology. Learn to read weather charts and predict weather.
Cost: $60.00 ($40.00 members)

If you want to register for any of these courses or obtain more
information, call 207-780-4249 or e-mail egleason@usm.maine.edu

AUGUST 2011 PLANETARIUM SHOW SCHEDULE

Yes, we’re open all year, even into the late summer. This August we continue our daily matinees (until August 18th); we have our now-traditional Lammas Celestial Poetry evening on August 1st. AND, we have a new event: Mad Science Monday. We’re pleased to announce that Mad Science will be here with their “Fire and Ice” show. Experience mad chemistry magic on Monday, August 15th at 1:00 p.m.

The days are hot; cool off in our dark dome and discover your Universe!

ADMISSION PRICES

Matinees – $5.00 – adults; $4.00 – children, students and seniors

Evening astronomy shows – $6.00 – adults; $5.00 – children, students and seniors

Lammas Celestial Poetry evening: Admission by donation

Mad Science Monday: $10.00 – adults; $8.00 – children.

Contact Information:

Edward Gleason
Planetarium Manager
(207) 780-4249
egleason@usm.maine.edu

Monday, August 1

11:00 a.m. RUSTY ROCKET’S LAST BLAST: Join Rusty Rocket and his band of rocket rookies as they explore the solar system. A fun planet show for children!

1:00 p.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

7:00 p.m. LAMMAS CELESTIAL POETRY EVENING: Three times a year we offer a poetry evening. Beltane Fires (around May 1); Lammas (on or around August 1) and Solstice Dawning (around December 20). Each event features local writers reading poetry and prose about the seasons, life, love, the night sky, Universe and, in August, the bounty of the harvest. We invite you to experience an evening of words in our star dome theatre. Emcee: Jane Raeburn. Admission by donation. Call 207-780-4249 for reservations or more information.

Tuesday, August 2

11:00 a.m. ABC’S OF THE SKY: Learn a new outer space word for each letter in the alphabet! A for “Astronaut,” B for “Big Dipper,” C for “Comet,” all the way through Z.

1:00 p.m. BLACK HOLES: An exciting show about one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe. How do black holes form? How can we find them? How do they distort space-time?

Wednesday, August 3

11:00 a.m. RUSTY ROCKET’S LAST BLAST: Join Rusty Rocket and his band of rocket rookies as they explore the solar system. A fun planet show for children!

1:00 p.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

Thursday, August 4

11:00 a.m. ABC’S OF THE SKY: Learn a new outer space word for each letter in the alphabet! A for “Astronaut,” B for “Big Dipper,” C for “Comet,” all the way through Z.

1:00 p.m. BLACK HOLES: An exciting show about one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe. How do black holes form? How can we find them? How do they distort space-time?

Friday, August 5

(Note: we do not have summer matinees on Friday)

7:00 p.m. BLACK HOLES: An exciting show about one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe. How do black holes form? How can we find them? How do they distort space-time?

8:30 p.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

Saturday, August 6

3:00 p.m. RUSTY ROCKET’S LAST BLAST: Join Rusty Rocket and his band of rocket rookies as they explore the solar system. A fun planet show for children!

Monday, August 8

11:00 a.m. DINOSAURS: A show for dinosaur lovers. See the Triceratops, T-Rex, Pteradons, and many more.

1:00 p.m. EXTREME PLANETS: We take you to astronomy’s cutting edge as we search for exo-planets (planets in orbit around other stars.) How do astronomers find them? Might any of them harbor life?

Tuesday, August 9

11:00 a.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

1:00 p.m. FIRES IN THE SKY: A program about the birth and death of stars. How do stars generate energy? How are they born? In what ways do they end their lives? What, for instance, will happen to the Sun?

Wednesday, August 10

11:00 a.m. DINOSAURS: A show for dinosaur lovers. See the Triceratops, T-Rex, Pteradons, and many more.

1:00 p.m. EXTREME PLANETS: We take you to astronomy’s cutting edge as we search for exo-planets (planets in orbit around other stars.) How do astronomers find them? Might any of them harbor life?

Thursday, August 11

11:00 a.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

1:00 p.m. FIRES IN THE SKY: A program about the birth and death of stars. How do stars generate energy? How are they born? In what ways do they end their lives? What, for instance, will happen to the Sun?

Friday, August 12

7:00 p.m. EXTREME PLANETS: We take you to astronomy’s cutting edge as we search for exo-planets (planets in orbit around other stars.) How do astronomers find them? Might any of them harbor life?

8:30 p.m. FIRES IN THE SKY: A program about the birth and death of stars. How do stars generate energy? How are they born? In what ways do they end their lives? What, for instance, will happen to the Sun?

Saturday, August 13

3:00 p.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

Monday, August 15

No matinees today as it is MAD SCIENCE MONDAY.

MAD SCIENCE MONDAY:

1:00 p. m. Fire and Ice

Children will be dazzled by the impressive science demonstrations in this spectacular show. From foggy dry ice storms and gravity-defying beach balls to a Mad Science burp-flavored potion, audiences will be amazed by what they see, hear and, ugh…taste! Ever see scissors sizzle and shiver? Ever taken a bubble shower? Here’s your chance. [Admission: $10.00 - adults; $8.00 - children. Call 207-780-4249 for tickets or more information.]

Tuesday, August 16

11:00 a.m. RUSTY ROCKET’S LAST BLAST: Join Rusty Rocket and his band of rocket rookies as they explore the solar system. A fun planet show for children!

1:00 p.m. IMAGES OF THE INFINITE: See the Universe through the lenses of the Hubble Space Telescope. From the planets to the Hubble Deep Field, we find amazing images of the infinite.

Wednesday, August 17

11:00 a.m. ABC’S OF THE SKY: Learn a new outer space word for each letter in the alphabet! A for “Astronaut,” B for “Big Dipper,” C for “Comet,” all the way through Z.

1:00 p.m. BLACK HOLES: An exciting show about one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe. How do black holes form? How can we find them? How do they distort space-time?

Thursday, August 18

11:00 a.m. RUSTY ROCKET’S LAST BLAST: Join Rusty Rocket and his band of rocket rookies as they explore the solar system. A fun planet show for children!

1:00 p.m. IMAGES OF THE INFINITE: See the Universe through the lenses of the Hubble Space Telescope. From the planets to the Hubble Deep Field, we find amazing images of the infinite.

[Summer weekday matinees end today.]

Friday, August 19

7:00 p.m. EIGHT PLANETS AND COUNTING: A revamped planet show for the entire family. Soar through a Martian canyon; descend through Titan’s clouds; discover the wonders of our solar system.

8:30 p.m. EXTREME PLANETS: We take you to astronomy’s cutting edge as we search for exo-planets (planets in orbit around other stars.) How do astronomers find them? Might any of them harbor life?

Saturday, August 20

3:00 p.m. DINOSAURS: A show for dinosaur lovers. See the Triceratops, T-Rex, Pteradons, and many more.

Friday, August 26

7:00 p.m. IMAGES OF THE INFINITE: See the Universe through the lenses of the Hubble Space Telescope. From the planets to the Hubble Deep Field, we find amazing images of the infinite.

8:30 p.m. BLACK HOLES: An exciting show about one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe. How do black holes form? How can we find them? How do they distort space-time?

Saturday, August 27

3:00 p.m. TWO SMALL PIECES OF GLASS: a show about the science and history of telescopes. (We’ll offer a full dome version of this program starting in September.)