University of Louisville Dept. of Physics &
Astronomy
and the Gheens Science Hall
&
Rauch Planetarium present
The
2008 Bullitt Lecture in Astronomy
Photo credits for collage: WIYN Telescope, Mark
Hanna/NOAO/AURA/NSF
M3 Globular Cluster: Stella Kafka and R. Kent Honeycutt, Indiana
University/WIYN/NOAO/NSF
As we celebrate the 400th
anniversary
of the invention of the telescope in
1608, and, next year, the 400th
anniversary of Galileo's first use of the
telescope to study the celestial
sphere, we can also celebrate the
star cities
of the Milky Way - the glorious globular star clusters that surround our galaxy.
Just as the
telescopes of the 17th century opened the sky for discoveries of
star
clusters and nebulae, 21st century telescopes take us to explore the
origin
and evolution of globular star
clusters in our galaxy, and in
galaxies far away.
Globular clusters offer a
glimpse of early star
formation in the Universe,
and of the origin of the basic
elements of the
periodic table. Some globular
clusters harbor black holes, while
others may be the remnants of
galaxies
shredded by the tidal forces
of the Milky Way. And above all, the globular
clusters are magnificent sentinels in the night sky, shining with the power of
hundreds of thousands of suns.
Katie Pilachowski
is the Kirkwood Professor and Astronomy Dept. Chair at Indiana
University. Previously, she was on staff at the National Optical
Astronomy Observatory
(NOAO) for 22 years, finishing as Deputy Director of the U.S. Gemini
(twin 8 meter
telescope) Program. She is a past President of the American
Astronomical Society, has
served on a number of national and international panels, and is a
recognized expert on
globular clusters.
She will be interviewed on WFPL 89.3FM's "State of Affairs" at 11am on
Oct. 29, with a
re-broadcast at 9pm.
We will record the lecture for our
permanent talk archive, and will
webcast it
live on the planetarium
website.
The Physics
& Astronomy
Department’s Bullitt Lecture is a free lecture aimed at the general
public. Since 2001, the
Physics & Astronomy Department’s Bullitt Lecture has presented a
distinguished astrophysicist to a Louisville audience in the Gheens
Science Hall and Rauch
Planetarium.
Gale Christianson,
Hubble's
biographer at Indiana State, Fred Espinak, an
eclipse expert at NASA
Goddard Space Flight Center, stellar astrophysicists
James Kaler of
U. Illinois, C. R. O'Dell of Vanderbilt and Caty Pilachowski of Indiana
U, and
cosmologists Fang Li Zhi of Arizona, J. Richard
Gott of Princeton and Alan
Dressler of the Carnegie
Observatories have been Bullitt Lecturers.
College
and high school students, teachers, and many others from the community
interested in
the impact and excitement that astrophysics has generated
have attended Bullitt Lectures in
large numbers. The public and members
of the University community are warmly invited!
The
Lecture is endowed through a grant from the family of William
Marshall
Bullitt, the Solicitor General
of the United States under President
William Howard Taft. Here is a brief
biography
and description of his connection to the University of Louisville.
If you would
like further information about the Bullitt Lecture, please e-mail
Dr. Gerard Williger at this email address: williger* where
*=@physics.louisville.edu
The 2006 and 2007 lectures are available in streaming (.asx) format in
the
UL
astronomy talk archive.
Posters for all of the current and previous Bullitt Lectures are
available:
2001
Gale Christianson, "Edwin Hubble: An Astronomer's Life"
2002
Fred Espinak, "Solar Eclipses and Mysteries of the Sun"
2003
James Kaler, "The Life and Death of Stars"
2004
Fang Li Zhi, "Dark Energy in the Universe"
2005
J. Richard Gott, "A Map of the Universe"
2006
Alan Dressler, "Galaxies, Stars, Planets and Life: the Birth of the
Modern Universe"
The 2006 speaker,
Dr. Alan Dressler, was interviewed on Louisville's WFPL (NPR) radio on
April 20, 2006 on State of Affairs, which has an
archive edition of the radio interview.
2007
C.R. O'Dell, "Creating the Hubble Space Telescope"
2008
Caty Pilachowski, "The Star Cities of the Milky Way"
flier
Links
to other Bullitt Lectures and Bullitt book collections:
Bullitt Lecture in
Mathematics
Bullitt Lecture in Fine Arts
William
Marshall Bullitt Collection of Rare Mathematics and Astronomy Books
More
on the Bullitt Collection of Books at UofL