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| Interstellar Molecular Clouds |
| E. Samuel Palmer - Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics |
| Thursday, Feb 14, 2008 at 8:00 PM |
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What we see depends on how we view it. This month join E. Samuel Palmer, radio astronomer and engineer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, as he takes us on an astrophysical side trip to show us the interstellar “stuff” he and his colleagues at the CfA observe in outer space that we can't see with our telescopes. Using molecular line spectroscopy both in the lab and with radio telescopes, E. Samuel Palmer and colleagues are able to learn more about the properties of dense molecular clouds and the initial conditions and early stages of star formation within these clouds.
Mr. Palmer’s millimeter-wave radio telescope on the roof over Phillips Auditorium is the only active research telescope physically located at Harvard Observatory. This telescope can see and interpret interstellar CO, a molecular mass tracer for what it can’t see, that is, molecular hydrogen which constitutes most of the mass in giant molecular clouds. The CO cloud survey done over the course of several decades using this telescope has played an important if not dominant role in our understanding of the distribution and properties of star forming molecular clouds in our galaxy and its nearest neighbors. It is considered the most extensive, uniform, and widely-used survey of star-forming molecular clouds to date.
Unlike many astronomers, the success of Mr. Palmer’s telescope keeps him close to home. “Everybody else gets to travel to Arizona, Hawaii, Chile and even the South Pole, not to mention low Earth orbit!” The short commute to his telescope from his main campus office at Pierce Hall leaves Mr. Palmer time to develop instrumentation for laboratory work in microwave and laser spectroscopy on exotic molecules of astrophysical interest. This, in fact, occupies most of his time.
Mr. Palmer, also a lecturer at Harvard University Extension School, teaches two introductory astronomy courses, and serves on the Science Advisory Panel of the Department of Education at the Center for Astrophysics. Covering all the bases, he is also a fellow amateur astronomer, observing the handful of stars occasionally visible from his home in Arlington.
Please join us for a pre-meeting dinner discussion at Changsho, 1712 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA at 6:00pm before the meeting. |
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