Finding Alien Life Forms February 19, 2009

Harvard Scientist discusses Alien Lifeforms at
The Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation

Waltham, MA – On February 19, 2009 at 7:30 pm, visitors to the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation may join Christine Pullium, public affairs specialist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and learn how Harvard University and The Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics are using small off-the-shelf telescopes and the largest telescopes on the planet to find alien worlds.
In the past 20 years, the number of known planets has grown from 9 to 330, and more are still being discovered. Many of these newly-found worlds look nothing like the planets of our solar system.  Some orbit so close to their stars that they roast in scorching heat. Distant planets are difficult to find, so astronomers apply a variety of technologies to tease out the subtle signs of their existence. Christine Pulliam has been fascinated by the night sky ever since receiving her first telescope as a Christmas gift when she was 13: a small, 3-inch-diameter refractor. She studied the moon and planets, and even caught the faint fuzzball of Halley’s Comet during its 1986 return. As an undergraduate college student, she participated in one of the first projects to search for planets orbiting distant stars – a search that succeeded years later. In graduate school, she studied the gaseous remains of dying stars that bear the misnomer of “planetary nebulae.” Since joining the Center for Astrophysics in 2001, she has offered astronomy presentations to kids and a recent astronomy overview for adults, “The 40 Minute Universe.” She also introduces many of CfA’s popular monthly public lectures. In 2006, she lectured at the Smithsonian Culture Fest in Flagstaff, Ariz
The Charles River Museum of Industry is located at 154 Moody Street in Waltham, beneath the smokestack of the Francis Cabot Lowell Mill complex. Admission is $10.00 per person. For information and directions, visit www.crmi.org or call 781-893-5410.

Official Website: http://www.crmi.org