News

    Dr. David Baylis  of the UA Little Rock History Department is a human geographer with research interests in social geography, cartography, and Geo-visualization. In this lecture, Dr. Baylis explains the mapping techniques that we use in everyday life and the need for geo-literacy.      

• NOV 2  – American astronomer Harlow Shapley was born on this day in 1895. Shapley was the first person to give a reasonably accurate value for the size of the Milky Way Galaxy. Shapley was a prominent astrophysicist and long-time director of the Harvard College Observatory. He died in 1972.         … Highlights of the November Sky 2018

I’m just as human as anyone else, so if I see a good two-for-one deal, I’m going to take advantage of it. The universe occasionally makes these kinds of offers so that we stargazers can fit two (or more) celestial objects into a single field of view (i.e. double stars, galaxy pairs, galaxy clusters, lunar … November 2018 Feature – The Double Cluster, NGC 869 and NGC 884

    Scott Simon  is director of The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas.  He joined The Nature Conservancy in Arkansas as a land steward in 1996 and has been its director since 2003.  Scott testifies on conservation issues for congressional and state legislative committees and has authored or coauthored 20 articles and book chapters. In this … EARTHtalk! – Scott Simon – Nature Conservancy

  In 2009, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), successfully entered into orbit around the moon in order to carry out its primary mission of mapping and imaging the lunar surface in unprecedented detail. The following year, at the Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA decided to celebrate the success of the mission with the general public … October 2018 Feature – International Observe the Moon Night

        • OCT 1 NASA becomes operational on this day in 1958, following the passage of the National Aeronautics and Space Act by President Dwight Eisenhower on July 29th of that same year. • OCT 2 Moon is at last quarter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        •  • OCT 4 In the … Highlights of the October Sky 2018

    Dr. Elizabeth Horton is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and Station Archeologist at the Arkansas Archeological Survey. She specializes in paleoethnobotany, the study of the relationship between people and plants. In this lecture, Dr. Horton focuses on the domestication of native plant species and how Arkansas has … EARTHtalk! – Dr. Elizabeth T. Horton

To best appreciate this month’s feature object, we must go back in time 4.6 billion years ago to when our solar system was born.   Prior to this, the solar system was nothing more than a gleam within the eye of a cloud of interstellar gas and dust orbiting two-thirds of the way out from the … September 2018 Feature – Comet 21/P Giacobini-Zinner

    • Sept 1 – On this day in 1979, NASA’s Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to fly by Saturn.               • Sept 2 – The moon is as last quarter. Be sure to get outside during the next two weeks, from around 9:00 PM until midnight in … Highlights of the September Sky 2018

Senator John McCain spoke at the Clinton School of Public Service on April 12, 2013. He shared his outlook on the importance of public service and that how giving we not only improves our communities, country and world… we also improve ourselves. Below is a link to part of the presentation he made that day. … Senator John McCain