I was alerted to this event by my ex, Barb, in London. It seems surreal to be alerted to a local event by someone living in London, but that is the internet for you.
Jason Kendall has been officially designated as Solar System ambassador to the City of New York. He lives locally in Innwood, Manhattan, and is an astronomer (and actor) associated with the planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. http://www.moonbeam.net/InwoodAstronomy/about-jason.shtml
At the start, I was given a CD by his wife, Donna Stearns. She is the head of a sort of astronomical glee club called Donna Stearns and the Big Bangers. They sang before the lecture began. Financing of the pressing of the CD was provided by Garden cafe, Innwood, NYC (Gardencafe-ny.com). Also, www.DonnaStearns.com.
Much time was devoted to the Kepler satellite that was just launched whose mission is to find Earth like planets. Jason pointed out that Johannes Kepler was the first to point out and to survive the audacity of pointing out that the orbits of the planets are elliptical, not circular. The Christians had killed other scientists who had proposed something similar. We also learned that life on Earth will cease in 100,000,000 years because the Sun is heating up and because of this, liquid water will not be able to exist on earth because of the greater heat in 100 million years.
We had fun playing with the Drake Equation, calculating the number of intelligent civilizations able to communicate within our own galaxy. I pointed out that the equation lacked one important factor, the likelihood of civilizations being in the control of religious crazies who kill scientists.. We have come close to that here on earth and the battle between reason and religious insanity is far from over.
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