Virtual Public Star Night 18 June 2021

Our guest speaker for this virtual public star night will be Dr Suzanne Metlay, full-time faculty at Western Governors University.  The title of her presentation is “UAE and China at Mars”.
The link to the broadcast is here: https://bit.ly/3vSgZbt

Before NASA landed the Perseverance rover mission on Mars, orbiters from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and China successfully arrived. What are these other missions about? Let’s look at the science being conducted, the societal implications of who is doing that work, and what may come next.

An image taken on Mars by Chinese rover Zhurong of China’s Tianwen-1 mission is seen in this handout image released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), May 19, 2021. CNSA/Handout via REUTERS

Suzanne T. Metlay, Ph.D., is full-time faculty at Western Governors University, Teachers College, preparing pre-service and in-classroom teachers to become middle school and high school Earth science educators with subject matter expertise in geology, oceanography, meteorology, and astronomy. A peer reviewer for the _Journal of Competency-Based Education_, Suzanne helps lead the Teacher Education Division of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT). Prior to joining WGU, Suzanne was full-time astronomy faculty at Front Range Community College, Colorado; Operations Director at Secure World Foundation (private non-profit for space sustainability); Education Programs Manager at Fiske Planetarium, University of Colorado at Boulder; and a member of the Antarctic Search for Meteorites (ANSMET). 

Weather permitting after the virtual presentation, visitors will be invited to continue to view real time images of the celestial spheres as imaged through one of our large telescopes.   Our Public Star Nights are usually held the third Friday of each month, except July, when we are closed for annual maintenance.

If you have any questions, please call the observatory information line at 970-613-7793 or check the LTO web site at www.starkids.org

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