The Luminous Supernova Remnant in a Nearby Galaxy

We had an absolutely wonderful speaker at our astronomy meeting tonight.  Her name is Dr. Lacey and she is the Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at a nearby university.  Her talk was about an unusual supernova remnant in a nearby galaxy.  The topic was complex, but her explanation of the subject and detailed information about her research was easy to understand for the most part and fascinating.  She was so generous with her time - her formal presentation was longer than an hour, and then she stood there answering questions from our members for another half-hour!  Then she continued to stay and visit informally with everyone after the meeting was over!  What a treat for us!

This is to give you a sense of where the lecture is held, in the lobby of the Vanderbilt Planetarium.  We had a good turnout in person, in addition to those at home watching on Zoom.

 One of the observatories she uses for her research, is the giant radio telescope near Socorro, New Mexico, called the "Very Large Array."  The radio telescope comprises 27 independent antennas in use at a given time, each of which has a dish diameter of 25 meters (82 feet) and weighs 209 metric tons!  The antennas are distributed along the three arms of a track, shaped in a "Y" configuration, each arm of which measures 13 miles long!  Dr. Lacey has 25 years of experience using the data from this astounding radio telescope.  There is a photograph of the array on the screen.