Thursday, December 29 11:53 am
One Ring Zero will perform their album Planets, a tribute to the solar system, at Cosmic Cocktails and Space Arcade. Photo Courtesy of One Ring Zero.
Escape the midwinter slump with a night out at the Museum. On Thursday, January 26, Cosmic Cocktails and Space Arcade will transform the Rose Center for Earth and Space into a party scene complete with hors d’oeuvres, open bar, indie arcade games provided by Babycastles, and exclusive after-hours access to the exhibition Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration. Throughout the night, One Ring Zero will play music from their album Planets, a tribute to the solar system. Below, band members Joshua Camp and Michael Hearst share the inside story behind the album.
Where do you find your musical inspiration?
Michael Hearst: I like to think of some of our projects as crash courses on specific subjects. For Planets, it began with the big news that the International Astronomical Union had demoted Pluto to the status of “dwarf planet.” We wrote a song about it, and had lots of fun performing it live. We then realized it had been just about 100 years since Holst had composed his song cycle The Planets. It seemed like it was time to musically revisit our solar system and come up with our own song cycle. Not to mention, our own geeky fascination with science and astronomy made it a perfect fit. Read more »
9:28 am
Curator Mac Low's research uses computing to follow the evolution of supernova explosions. This photo shows supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. © NASA/CXC/GSFC/U.Hwang et al.
The fifth floor of the Rose Center for Earth and Space is home to the Museum’s Department of Astrophysics, which includes a research group of two dozen graduate students, research scientists, and postdocs. Mordecai-Mark Mac Low is one of three curators in the department. Below is the second in a series of features on the curators’ areas of research.
Curator Mac Low’s office is bright, and most of the floor space is claimed by book-lined shelves and neat stacks of papers. Just outside the door, the hall window—marked with equations scribbled in red and blue marker—looks out onto the gray top of the Hayden Sphere as sunlight pours in from 81st Street.
Mac Low also studies the evolution of stars, but his more theoretical approach to astrophysics requires months of computing time and routine digital conference calls with an international network of collaborators and students.
“I’m a storyteller,” says Mac Low. “I’m verbally oriented, not primarily a mathematician…but getting a computer to do what you want it to do is something that I’m comfortable with and amused by, by and large.” Read more »
Tuesday, December 27 11:23 am
At a time when Kwanzaa was still a rather new tradition, the Museum became one of the places where New York-area residents came to celebrate. Over the past 33 years, the annual Kwanzaa gathering at the Museum has grown into one of the most engaging events of its kind. This year’s celebration on December 31 will feature an array of high-energy performers, an international marketplace, and more. Monique Scott, assistant director for cultural education at the Museum, recently answered a few questions about the holiday and the history of the Kwanzaa celebration at the Museum.
What values does Kwanzaa honor?
Kwanzaa celebrates the interconnectedness of humanity, as well as the connections between humans and the natural world, making it a great fit for the Museum. The holiday illustrates the ways culture is always reinventing and renewing itself. Several of Kwanzaa’s core principles represent important general cultural ideals—unity, collective responsibility, a strong sense of community building and community preservation, education of youth, and respect of elders, to name a few. Read more »
9:33 am
In 1950, the Museum’s Hayden Planetarium began accepting reservations for the first trip into space as part of a publicity campaign for its exhibition Conquest of Space. Letters poured in from around the world with requests to book trips to the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and beyond, capturing the public’s passion and curiosity for space exploration. One cosmic hopeful suggested surveying Earth’s planetary neighbor for ancient life.
Click to enlarge. © AMNH
Though interplanetary tourism is not yet possible, our fascination with space travel persists. Discover what the future holds for space exploration in the Museum’s exhibition Beyond Planet Earth: The Future of Space Exploration. To see more of the Hayden letters and tell us where in space you’d like to go today, click here. And if you share Arthur’s interest in dinosaurs, stop by The World’s Largest Dinosaurs before it closes on Monday, January 2.
Friday, December 23 10:11 am
MAT Program Co-Director Ro Kinzler sheds light on the Museum's new degree offering. © AMNH/D. Finnin
The Museum’s new Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program is the first urban teacher residency program offered by a museum and a unique 15-month teaching fellowship for people who want to share their passion for science with middle and high school students in New York State. On Saturday, January 7, the Museum will host an Open House for the program from noon to 2 pm or 2 to 4 pm, giving prospective applicants the chance to meet faculty and staff, find out more about how the MAT program is structured, and take behind-the-scenes tours of the Museum campus before the final application deadline on January 31. MAT Program Co-Director Ro Kinzler, who is also the director of the Museum’s National Center for Science Literacy, Education, and Technology (NCSLT), recently answered a few questions about this unique opportunity.
Why has the MAT program been created now?
New York State recently issued the opportunity for “non-traditional” institutions to offer master in education programs designed to prepare teachers in high-need areas for the first time—so the Museum has stepped up to meet this opportunity. Read more »
