Science Talk - July 29th

CLIMAX: How Solar Astronomy Came to Boulder, and the fascinating history of NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory.

The Boulder region is a powerhouse for solar astronomy, not only in the country, but in the world. Two major agencies are headquartered here, and participate in the production of some of the most important solar observations, and related theorizations, in the entire world. This is an accident. Rather, both the High Altitude Observatory (based out of the National Center for Atmospheric Research) and the National Solar Observatory (which relocated to Boulder from the Southwest in 2016), have their origins in the deeply captivating story of the establishment, in 1940, and largely by a young newly-wed Harvard graduate and his wife, of a remote solar coronagraph-based observatory in a remote site atop a Molybdenum Mine.

Hanna Rose Shell is a Historian of Science, and an Artist, and is currently the Faculty Director of the Stan Brakhage Center for Media Arts at CU, where she is also a Full Professor of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts, and of Art & Art History, She is the author of several scholarly books in the field of the history of science and technology, and has also produced multiple award winning documentary films, She is currently an Artist/Scholar at the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.

Once a month discussions about current science topics.

Stay tuned for our next science talk in late July...