Astronomy on Tap Hawai’i: June 10th

Astronomy on Tap Hawaiʻi is back on June 10th from 7–9 pm at Hale Kanikapila! Join us for an evening of astronomy, drinks, trivia, and prizes with two speakers from the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy.

Willem Hoogendam will show us that not everything in our Universe is changing slowly in his talk “Time Domain Astronomy Near and Far”: Many astrophysical phenomena occur over thousands, millions, or billions of years. However, plenty happens on human timescales too. In this talk, I’ll present astronomical events that happen and evolve over human timescales.

Rena Lee will present “Exploring Extreme Earths”, introducing ultra-short-period planets: Ultra-short-period planets (USPs) are Earth-sized planets with orbital periods less than a single day. This makes for some extreme surface temperatures and surface environments in these hellish worlds. Since true Earth analogs on yearly orbits are still difficult to find with our leading technologies, USPs are our best bet for probing terrestrial planet compositions, formation pathways, and evolution. Using state-of-the-art instrumentation atop MaunaKea, we have discovered several USP systems that provide key insights into the origins of our own planet.