The University of Wyoming encourages students to aim for the stars and broaden your horizons with a trip to the Harry C. Vaughan Planetarium.
This month, show attendees can learn how stars relate to Wyoming and which ones will be twinkling this month. The Planetarium has a slew of events in February on Tuesdays and Fridays, with Saturday shows Feb. 9 and 23. These events include three Wyoming themed events on Feb. 5, 9 and 22.
Daniel Dale, professor and associate dean of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, helps run the planetarium.
What makes a planetarium’s view of the sky unique?
“It’s being able to zoom through the three dimensional nature of the universe and also we get to in a sense zoom through time,” Dale said. “It’s really flexible that’s just part of what makes it so interesting.”
The Planetarium has a total of ten events this month: “This Month’s Sky,” “You Are a Star,” “Don’t Feed the Geysers,” “Distant Worlds…Alien Life?,” “The Cosmic Cooking Show,” “Full-Dome Movie Double Feature,” “Native American Skies,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and a second showing of full-dome movie double feature.
Samantha Ogden, program coordinator for K-12, said that the monthly programs are created based off the presenters interests relating to the planetarium.
“Taylor is presenting ‘Don’t Feed the Geysers’ and she wanted to take her planetarium show in a bit of a different direction, looking down instead of looking up at the night sky,” said Ogden. “She is looking down at the geography of Yellowstone and some things people will want to know before they go visit. There are a few volcanically active objects in the solar system she will compare Yellowstone to.”
“Don’t Feed the Geysers” takes place on Feb. 9 at 11 a.m. The other two Wyoming based shows are “Native American Skies,” presented by Brandon Meyers, and “This Month’s Skies.”
“Most of the modern constellations we are familiar with are from ancient Greece, but Brandon wants us to remember that other civilizations had their own constellations,” Ogden said about “Native American Skies.”
“This Month’s Skies” is a monthly exhibit that the Planetarium shows the first Tuesday of every month to let audiences know what there is to look for that month.
In addition to being entertainment, on campus activities such as the ones provided by the planetarium are useful resources to get both kids and students involved and interested in science, Dale said.
“The good thing there is you’re just getting young people exposed to the cool things that science provides us with like information and cool objects to look at,” said Dale.
