Next week, we'll be listening to #Bermuda in stereo for the first time!
A hidden geologic structure deep below the island may explain why Bermuda still rises above the Atlantic Ocean more than 30 million years after its volcanoes went quiet.
Next week, Carnegie Science postdoc Will Frazer—alongside Diana Roman, Katy Cain, and Navid Marvi—returns to the island for the next phase of the Bermuda Earthquake & Structure Test (#CarnegieBEST). The team will check in on a network of 10 broadband seismometers deployed back in February, and collect the first major dataset from the project.
This new network is primed to turn one of the Atlantic's most isolated islands into a natural laboratory for planetary discovery.
Follow along as the team takes over the @CarnegiePlanets Instagram for daily behind-the-scenes looks at the fieldwork, the science, and the story of a beautiful and mysterious volcanic island.
#CarnegieScience #CarnegieEPL #CarnegieBEST #QuickDeployBox #IslandGeology #GeologicalMystery #BermudaScience #Seismology #Seismometer #Geology #Geoscience #EarthquakeResearch #SeismicArray #SciComms #FieldWork #FieldworkLife #Bermuda #BermudaTriangle @navidmarvi@katycain526
POV: Jeff Rich is about to fit the universe into your classroom 🌌✨
Happy International Day of Planetariums! Our most-requested outreach tool packs up in the trunk of a car and inflates into 12 feet of ✨cosmic wonder.✨ Inside the dome, students "fly" around the Solar System, travel hundreds of thousands of years into the past or future, and discover what the night sky looks like from our telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. 🔭
For nearly a decade, we've brought the planetarium to Pasadena classrooms, scouting troops, science festivals, and children's hospitals—reaching over 1,000 students every year.
Jeff's dream? That one student walks in with an amateur interest in astronomy and walks out wanting to become a professional scientist.
Learn more about our planetarium programming from Carnegie Outreach Coordinator Jeff Rich at the link in our bio (bit.ly/3PqHHGY).
#Carnegie125 #InternationalDayOfPlanetariums #CarnegieScience #PlanetariumDay
One of our most beloved of our educational initiatives fits into the trunk of a car!
As one of the first institutions founded in Pasadena more than a century ago, the Carnegie Science Observatories is woven tightly into the city’s community fabric. From the spring Astronomy Lecture Series to the annual Open House that draws nearly a thousand visitors to the historic Observatories building each fall, public outreach is part and parcel with our standing as community members.
These programs bring the same wonder of the cosmos, on which our astronomers have built their careers, to local learners of all ages, abilities, and interest levels.
The Inflatable Planetarium is one of our most requested programs and is the ninth object in our #Carnegie125 campaign.
We sat down with Carnegie Science Outreach Coordinator Jeff Rich to learn more about the inflatable planetarium’s origins and how it’s come to be our most requested outreach initiative.
Swipe for highlights and read the full Q&A and the link in our bio.
Want to know the REAL mystery of Bermuda? 🤯 🏝️
At a recent #NeighborhoodLecture, #CarnegiePostdoc William Frazer took us beyond the triangle to explore an even deeper question: Why does Bermuda exist to begin with?
No, but seriously.
Missed the lecture? Good news, we recorded it for you! Link in bio.
#CarnegieBEST
The first rule of Lunch Club is: no complaints about the food. The second is no seconds before 12:45 pm. The third is no hot dogs more than once a week.
Object 10 of our #Carnegie125 series: a Washington Post clipping and a worn grey notebook. These two objects are windows into Lunch Club, the oldest surviving tradition at the Earth & Planets Laboratory.
It started in 1947, when a handful of biophysicists at our Broad Branch Road campus got tired of driving off campus for lunch and decided to cook for each other instead. Nearly eight decades later they're still at it. Geochemists pick up some astronomy. Astronomers pick up some geology. In fact, Vera Rubin once thought she was just sharing her research over lunch. It turned out to be her job interview. She got the job.
The clipping is from 1984, when the Washington Post's Joan Nathan visited campus to report on our unique community lunch. The notebook is from the same era, passed cook to cook to plan the week's meals. Today, the notebook has been retired for a Google spreadsheet, and the daily schedule shrank to Thursdays and Fridays after COVID. But Lunch Club is still kicking! In 2027, it turns 80.
Read the full story and download the Lunch Club Cookbook at the link in our bio.
This week I had the enormous privilege of spending time at @carnegiescience 's @lcoastro , which is located in Chile's high Atacama Desert in the foothills of the Andes Mountains.
I think it is one of the most beautiful places on Earth, thanks to the region's tremendous natural beauty. It is also rich in another kind of beauty: one based on human connection and mutual trust and appreciation for the roles that every member of its community plays in its smooth operation.
Despite the often high stakes of the science being accomplished at the site, the sense of warm collegiality and shared joy in a job well done is palpable at every moment. The Chilean highlands may be famous for their arid atmosphere. But the cultural atmosphere of Las Campanas Observatory is anything but dry.
l took upward of 1,000 photos over the course of the week, but I'll only share a few of my favorites. Up first, some panoramas.
The team who designed and built the Henrietta Infrared Spectrograph honored its namesake (and the namesake of the telescope on which the instrument is mounted) by taking its second-ever spectra 🌈 of HD114729, a star 🌟 whose light is reaching us from 1902, the year Henrietta Swope was born. This instrument was conceived to study the atmospheres of distant worlds 🪐, revealing clues about their chemistries, climates, and histories. Our @carnegiescience Editorial Director @brideofcarnegie tells us all about it.
That moment when years of hard work finally come to fruition. Can you hear the joy in the Swope control room @lcoastro ? 🎊
Last night, the Henrietta Spectrograph team saw "engineering first light," observing a star called HR3512. 🌟
They then proceeded to run through a series of tests to ensure the telescope could focus properly and move into all of its positions with no additional stress on it or the instrument. 🤓💪
Congratulations to everyone who brought this moment to life! Here's to a new era of discovery at Swope!! 🙌
The Henrietta team had a busy morning, hoisting the instrument through a hatch and into the dome of the Swope telescope, where it was bolted on. Seven years in the making, this new spectrograph is custom designed to study the atmospheres of distant worlds. Project lead Jason Williams watches as project Mechanical Engineer Gerrad Killion, @lcoastro mechanical engineer Roberto Piñeiro, and other members of the on-site engineering team do what they do best—keep our telescopes elite.
We know we tend to spend a lot of time talking about the "planets" part of the Earth & Planets Laboratory (@carnegieplanets ). Still, our hands-down favorite planet of all time is the one we live on. Happy #EarthDay!
Learn how we're studying our home among the stars at the link in our bio!
A seismic mystery lurks beneath Bermuda. Join us for a special #NeighborhoodLecture as Carnegie postdoc William Frazer goes beyond the triangle to uncover the truth! 🔺🏝️🕵️🪨🤯
🗓️ April 30 @ 6:30 PM ET
📍 Earth & Planets Laboratory | Washington, D.C.
🔗 Link in bio
@biosstation , @bermudanationaltrust , @nationalmuseumbermuda , @bda_zoo_society
Object 8 of #Carnegie125 is the Carnegie seal embosser, a cast-iron press from the early 1900s that once stamped the institution’s seal into official documents. For more than a century, that same mark appeared on publications, the annual Year Book, swag, and even a ceramic core used to cast a Magellan telescope mirror.
And guess what? The embosser still works today! (Yes, we tested it.)
Our visual identity has evolved to put science more clearly at the center, but this historic press still carries the weight of an earlier era.
More details at the link in our bio!
#CarnegieScience #125Objects #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #Archives #HistoricOfficeSupplies #VintageStationery
