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Star party: The Cosmic Carnival celebrates astronomy and science with fun exhibits and activities
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Look up to the sky and see what you can find during the Cosmic Carnival.
The family friendly event will feature a list of exhibitors that will educate attendees on all things stellar on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the Open Space Visitor Center.
Star party: The Cosmic Carnival celebrates astronomy and science with fun exhibits and activities
“We have the Albuquerque Rocket Society coming,” said Lynne Olson, The Albuquerque Astronomical Society publicity chair. “They’re going to be outside this time. We figured that was the best thing to do with them because they won’t be shooting off rockets, but they will be showing visual type things. Explora comes with hands-on space exhibits and I think they’re going to have a wind tunnel this year. (Central New Mexico Community College) is coming with ‘Unraveling the Mysteries of Light’ with Erica Voges, who’s actually an astronomy professor at CNM. We have all kinds of high level people coming.”
Other exhibitors include Dark-Sky International, the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History, New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, Santa Fe Children’s Museum, New Mexico Network for Women in Science and Engineering, TAAS Portable Planetarium, TAAS Solar Observing, and the University of New Mexico Meteoritics and the The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Weather Service, which will have a large display on how flooding occurs. A NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador also will be at the event.
In the Open Space Visitor Center’s courtyard, attendees can visit an orrery, which is a mechanical solar system model, and take a glance at the night sky during the Star Party that begins at 6 p.m. TAAS members will offer telescopes for eventgoers to look through.
TAAS, was established in 1959, and called Albuquerque Astronomy at the time. It eventually became The Albuquerque Astronomical Society. It is a nonprofit, all volunteer club, with about 350 main members.
“If you add all the family members that come along with them, it swells to 700 and all of our events are free and open to the public, with the exception of two that are for members only...We have a telescope building and maintenance workshop twice a month. We have the UNM observatory open house that we support with our telescopes and we have star parties at various venues throughout the year.”
