Space Sciences Lab to participate Friday in international astronomy Webcast
Contact: Robert Sanders, Media Relations
(510) 643-6998
rsanders@berkeley.edu
02 April 2009
ATTENTION: News and science editors, producers
WHAT
A 20-minute online tour of two of the University of California, Berkeley's space missions, part of a live, 24-hour Webcast marathon dubbed "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" and organized around the International Year of Astronomy 2009.
The streamed tour will be conducted by Space Sciences Laboratory scientist Manfred Bester, who will answer questions from the public about two of UC Berkeley's satellite missions: THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) and RHESSI (Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager). It is part of a worldwide event called "100 Hours of Astronomy" taking place April 2-4 and advertised as "the largest single science public outreach event ever." More than 1,500 events celebrating astronomy and ranging from star parties to lectures and exhibitions are taking place in over 130 countries.
WHEN
5:40-6 p.m. PDT Friday, April 3
WHERE
The Webcast can be found at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/100-hours-of-astronomy.
WHO
The tour is being hosted by Manfred Bester, director of operations at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory.
DETAILS
"Around the World in 80 Telescopes" will introduce viewers around the globe to some of the most advanced observatories on and off the planet, including the Hawaii-based W. M. Keck Observatory, the University of California's Lick Observatory, Palomar Observatory in Southern California, and the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
Viewers can find out what is happening at a research observatory in their home country or on the other side of the planet, send in questions and messages, see new images from the cosmos, and discover what astronomers are doing at that moment.
The webcast will be hosted at the European Southern Observatory's headquarters in Munich, Germany, with live streaming by Ustream.tv. Anyone with a Web browser supporting Flash will be able to follow the show via the Web site: http://www.100hoursofastronomy.org/.