A LIVE INTERACTIVE NASA WEBCAST FOR STUDENTS
“George Ellery Hale’s Legacy and the Future of Giant American Telescopes”
When: Wednesday, October 8, 2008 – 11:00 AM (PACIFIC TIME) (2:00 pm Eastern; 8:00 am Hawaii)
Where: On the Internet www.journeytopalomar.org
(Click on NASA Webcast) or quest.nasa.gov/lunar/palomar/
STUDENTS will meet producers Todd and Robin Mason of the award-winning new primetime PBS documentary The Journey to Palomar and learn about the super-human efforts of American astronomer George Ellery Hale and his colleagues to build the biggest telescopes of the 20th century, predecessors of the new mega telescopes being built today for the 21st century.
THEN, students will have an exclusive, once-in-a-lifetime chance to explore the universe, LIVE with America’s top astronomers who are building this next generation of giant American Telescopes. They’ll also have a look at NASA’s LCROSS mission to search for water on the Moon, live from NASA’s launch of the final Hubble repair mission at the Kennedy Space Center. Students from Maine to Hawaii can submit questions directly to the experts via the internet.
SPECIAL GUESTS include Nobel Laureate Dr. John Mather, Science Director for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope; Carnegie Observatories Director, Dr. Wendy Freedman on the Giant Magellan Telescope; and Caltech Optical Observatories Director Emeritus, Dr. Richard Ellis on the Thirty-Meter Telescope. Moderator is Dr. Derrick Pitts, television personality and Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.
TO PARTICIPATE, go to: www.journeytopalomar.org
The Journey to Palomar is the story of American astronomer George Ellery Hale’s dramatic public and private struggle to build the four largest telescopes in the world, which set the stage for astronomy and space exploration throughout the 20th century, revealing the greatest discoveries since Galileo and Copernicus. The documentary premieres on nationwide on PBS November 10th. (Check your local listings for the schedule in your area.) A comprehensive Teacher Guide (free download) accompanies the documentary at pbs.org in November.