stand up for REAL science

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Brendan Arnold

Ready for more fun with informal science? Set aside the evening of Wednesday, October 8, for a stimulating discussion on "Satellites and Strange Space Clouds."

From the 9/2/2008 USA Today:

A weirdly wonderful sight appeared to astronauts aboard the International Space Station this summer - thin blue clouds hovering at the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and the void. . . . . Researchers speculate that the origin and spread of the clouds is linked to patterns of climate change associated with the modern era. But they are not ruling out a host of other possible factors, including methane, carbon dioxide, the number of meteors seeding the upper atmosphere, and even the 11-year sunspot cycle.

The Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite mission explores Polar Mesospheric Clouds (PMCs), also called noctilucent clouds, to find out why they form and why they are changing. Here's a great short video showing the daily progression of NLCs over the North Pole during the 2007 season. (Credit: AIM/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)

Dianne Robinson is a science professor and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Science Center at Hampton University. In addition to her duties as professor, she works closely with the HU Center for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS) directing three of their education and outreach programs for NASA satellite-based research missions CALIPSO, AIM, & SABER. As ISC Chair, she directs four GEOSCIENCE student and teacher outreach programs funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and a NASA Earth Systems Science online course for teachers and undergraduates. Prior to becoming a professor, Dianne taught science to grades 5-12. She has a PhD in Science Education from the University of Iowa.

Sponsored by the FHSU Science and Mathematics Education Center, Cafe Semolino's, and Kansas Citizens for Science. Also found on Facebook and MySpace. (An account of last week's Cafe is here.)