GCSU holds public events to introduce NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

GCSU holds public events to introduce NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

Georgia College & State University (GCSU) is throwing a free, two-night Sky Party for the public to introduce NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and its golden honeycomb mirrors.

The events will give people the chance to see planets and stars closeup.

“Kids in this area don’t have the same opportunities that kids in big cities have,” said Dr. Catrena Lisse, director of Georgia College’s Science Education Center. “Kids in big cities can take field trips to massive observatories, but for our population around us—we’re it. So, we want to give kids, who’ve never looked through a telescope, the chance to see something amazing.”

Ten counties in Central Georgia have been invited: Baldwin, Bibb, Jones, Twiggs, Monroe, Jasper, Putnam, Hancock, Washington and Wilkinson.

The two-night Sky Party:

  • Friday, Jan. 20 Georgia College’s Pohl Observatory on the fourth floor of Herty Hall will be open 7:30 to 9 p.m. Participants can observe the Milky Way, moon and planets through the university’s 24-inch Corrected Dall-Kirkham (CDK 24) Astrograph telescope optical tube. In the event of rain, digital simulations of the sky will be offered in the GCSU Planetarium inside the Natural History Museum at Herty Hall.
  • Monday, Jan. 23 The Sky Party will be 6 to 9 p.m. on Front Campus. More than a dozen telescopes, some loaned from area astronomy enthusiasts, will be used to view the moon and planets—especially Saturn and Jupiter. Before sunset, there’ll be hands-on activities for kids, free giveaways from NASA and STEM information booths.

After sunset, around 6 p.m., people will be asked to turn off cellphones for better viewing in total darkness. Red-light flashlights will be distributed. Georgia College student volunteers will refocus telescopes between sightings.

Junior biology major Tiffany Baptiste of Conyers is excited to help. This will be her first experience looking through a telescope. Junior chemistry major Nicole Snyder of Marietta can’t wait to see people’s expressions when they see the constellations.

“I wanted to get involved, because it seems like such an incredible thing to do,” Snyder said. “The suburbs have too much light, and it’s hard to see. Out here, it’s so beautiful and the planets are so stunning through the telescope. It looks like something you’d see in a textbook, like you could reach out and touch it.”

The James Webb Space Telescope launched into space December 2021 from French Guiana. Hailed as the most powerful space observatory ever built, the $7.6 billion scope is said to have the capacity to peer back billions of years, maybe even to the Big Bang itself. It’ll advance evolutionary study of galaxies and the formation of stars, as well as identify potential life on planetary systems.

Since April 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has been sending images back to earth. It’s expected to beam 458 gigabits of data each day for ten years—until 2032.

The Georgia College event is funded by a NASA grant to raise awareness of the James Webb Space Telescope launch. Georgia College the only university in the state to hold a large community event.

Previous activities included an “Out of This World” telescope viewing on Front Campus during summer 2021. On Family Weekend that November, Dr. Kavitha Arur, a NASA presenter and postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology, was Zoomed-in to answer questions. More than 400 people attended these events.

Last year, Georgia College also sponsored an engineering design challenge among Georgia school systems. Students were asked to replicate the James Webb Space Telescope using only paper products, thick manila folders, aluminum foil and tape. More than 100 schools participated. A middle school in Savannah won the competition.

For the upcoming Sky Party, Georgia College’s Science Education Center is collaborating with the university’s GIVE Center and Academic Outreach; the GCSU Department of Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy; several student organizations; NASA; local governments and businesses.

“I’m excited to give this opportunity to people who’ve never seen beyond our night sky,” Lisse said. “I want people to say, ‘Why stop at the stars, when we’ve walked on the moon?’ I want to give young people a glimpse into the things they can do.”

Updated: 2023-01-23
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Dr. Catrena Lisse
catrena.lisse@gcsu.edu
(478)445-8668
Science Education Center
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