Monthly meetings are held on the second Tuesday of each month at 7:30 PM online at this link
Dark matter is our best explanation for why galaxies stay together when they don’t seem massive enough to keep up gravitational attraction. But now a largely-dismissed alternative theory has some actual proof backing it up. This could get complicated.
Mention in the media: The RAS skywatch scheduled for tonight, January 21, at the SMV was mentioned in an online news item at NBC 12 On Your Side. Please join us and bring a scope if you can. Dress warmly if you come, temperatures are expected to drop below freezing into the mid-twenties during the … Read more
Scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before. Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF), a brief burst produced inside thunderstorms and shown to be associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 TGFs … Read more
Happy 2011: I hope everyone had a great holiday season and enjoyed celebrating the arrival of 2011. To greet the new year, we were treated with a Quadrantid meteor shower under a near-new moon. I spent about an hour or so taking in the sky and looking for meteors early this week. I saw three … Read more
Image of the GIANT solar eclipse, with a special present included!
The singularity is here–run http://ow.ly/37PC8 Scientists have said that these temperatures are actually 1 million times hotter than the surface of the sun. http://ow.ly/37PxO #astronomy
Thanks to Wayne Boggs and Richmond Alarm Company: As most of you reading this already know, it became necessary earlier this year to find a new location for our library volumes. After we searched around quite a bit for an appropriate location and debated the various approaches for managing the library, Ken Wilson contacted RAS … Read more
The RAS Fall picnic was definitely a success. Thanks very much to Tim Streagle and the Heart of Virginia Scout Reservation for use of the facility, for supplying grilling equipment and for providing such a great stargazing venue afterward. Thanks also to Prashant Reddy for coordinating the event and the menu and making sure that everything went smoothly.
The weather was great and the evening was a lot of fun. It was wonderful to see everyone.
The annual meeting of the Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies will be held this year on the campus of Roanoke College in the Colket Center (221 College Lane, Salem, VA) on October 9 from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM with evening observing opportunities. More information is at:
Many many thanks! Our volunteers put forth a huge amount of time and effort to coordinate and support our many outreach events and skywatches as well as moving and organizing our library books, caring for our observatory and taking care of the club’s business and other activities. I cannot begin to thank everyone properly. It … Read more