Smithsonian’s astronomy lectures start Wednesday at West Center in GV

Once again the Smithsonian Institution will present its series New Vista In Astronomy at Green Valley starting Wednesday, Jan. 16.

Astronomer Trevor Weekes will give the first lecture at 9 a.m. at the West Center. His topic: “Whatever Happened to Pluto?”

For 76 years since its discovery in 1930, Pluto was classified as one of the Solar System’s nine planets.

But in 2006, the International Astronomical Union changed its classification to dwarf planet. That occurred after other similar sized objects were observed in the Solar System.

Weekes works at the Smithsonian’s Whipple Observatory at Mount Hopkins southeast of Green Valley.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Other lectures in the series this year include:

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 9 a.m., Jeremy Perkins, Whipple Observatory, “Clusters of Galaxies: A Very Big Laboratory.”

Tuesday, Feb. 19, 9 a.m., Grant Williams of the MMT Observatory at Mount Hopkins, “Massive Stars as Comic Engines: Wolf-Rayet Stars and Gamma-ray bursts.”

Tuesday, Feb. 26, 9 a.m., Emilio Falco of the Whipple Observatory, “Strange New Planets.”

Wednesday, March 26, 9 a.m. Faith Villas of the MMT Observatory, “News from Mercury, The Messenger Mission.”

jlamb@gvnews.com | 520-547-9749