LVAAS General Meeting

Sunday April 13, 7 p.m. at LVAAS South Mountain Headquarters, Allentown PA

 

Speaker is via Zoom
 

"Stargazing and Beyond: A Global Network of Citizen Astronomers"

Featuring Dr. Franck Marchis

Astronomy is a science that inspires everyone, which makes it a great tool for expanding scientific literacy. It also has a uniquely powerful ability to make us aware of Earth’s value and fragility. And by inspiring people to engage in citizen science, astronomy fosters not only scientific research but also collaborative knowledge-building that’s based on a dialogue between experts and amateurs. The Unistellar network is by far the largest network of telescopes and citizen astronomers around the world, with mew than 13,000 digital telescopes in more than 50 countries. This network has collected more than 4,000 scientific observations in 2022 and our citizen astronomers have helped the NASA TESS mission by confirming exoplanets and supported NASA DART by recording the impact live and its aftermath, validating the efficient of the kinetic impactor technique to protect humanity against the threat of asteroid impacts. We present here some of the key scientific results achieved in 2021-2024, and future developments in education to make astronomy, easier, fun, and accessible, but also more inclusive and accessible. With the connected and  decentralized platform SkyMapper, we propose to accelerate research space and popularize it by inviting  people who own a telescope to be part of space exploration.

Dr. Franck Marchis is a senior astronomer and Director of Citizen Science at the SETI Institute, Chief Science Officer and co-founder of Unistellar, and co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of SkyMapper. After earning his Ph.D. from the University of Toulouse, France, in 2000, Marchis moved to the United States to pursue his passion for astronomy and exploration. His research, published in Nature, Science, and other leading journals, includes notable discoveries such as the first triple-asteroid system in 2005, the binary Trojan asteroid Patroclus in 2006, the direct imaging of a Jupiter-like exoplanet in 2015, and major advancements in adaptive optics for 8-10m class ground-based telescopes, as well as citizen science using networks small telescopes. In recognition of his contributions to astronomy, the asteroid (6639) Marchis was named in his honor for his discovery of the first triple-asteroid system. In 2023, Marchis was elected a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences for his dedication to outreach and the search for life in the universe. The following year, he received the Carl Sagan Center Director’s Award for his excellence in SETI research, education, and outreach.

 

Prospective new members who wish to attend the meeting should email membership@lvaas.org.