AAC Public Meeting @ Florida Museum of Natural History

  • 11 Aug 2015
  • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida Cultural Plaza, 3215 Hull Road, Gainesville, FL 32611-2710
Join us for an exciting and interesting evening at the Florida Museum of Natural History!

Agenda:
7:00 - 7:30 General Meeting & Announcements
7:30 - 7:45 Refreshments
7:45 - Invited Speaker

Speaker: Rebecca Pitts (Graduate Student, Department of Astronomy, University of Florida)



Title: Introducing Neutron Stars (From a Safe Distance)

Synopsis: Neutron stars defy any pithy description, such is the extremity to which they push the bounds of every known law of physics. The mass of Sirius in a sphere the size of Orlando, Florida. A crust 10 billion times tougher than steel. Surface gravity pushing 100 billion g’s, and a magnetic field strong enough to rip every charged particle from its surface at relativistic speeds in spite of that. And most of them were found because they blast us up to hundreds of times per second with jets of radio waves, x-rays, gamma-rays and more. Like that one really tough and scary teacher we all had in our primary school years, by the end of the lecture you'll be happy you got to know neutron stars, and just as glad to know you don't share a neighborhood with one.
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