Learn more about a 10-year (and counting) project to measure the expansion of the universe, at the Indiana University Kokomo Observatory’s February open house.
Patrick Motl, professor of physics, will begin the open house at 7 p.m. Sunday, February 11 with a presentation about dark energy, including recent results from the Dark Energy Survey project, an international collaborative effort to map hundreds of millions of galaxies, detect thousands of supernovae, and find patterns of cosmic structure that will reveal the nature of the mysterious dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of our universe.
After the presentation, stargazers may be able to see Jupiter and highlights from the winter triangle like the Orion nebula through the Observatory’s telescopes, a six-inch Takahashi refracting telescope and a 16-inch Meade reflecting telescope mounted together. The Takahashi provides exceptionally sharp images of planets, while the Meade allows viewers to see fainter objects in the sky, due to its larger light-collecting area.
Observation will continue through 9 p.m. weather permitting.
The Observatory is at 2660 S. Washington St., Kokomo. Free parking is available on campus.
