Monday, October 06, 2008

Onward to the moon:



Jeff Taylor, University of Hawaii astronomy professor and science communicator, will give a free, family-friendly, public lecture on "Lunar Settlements, Lunar Science," Sunday, Oct. 12, at Cornell University's Bailey Hall at 7:30 p.m. Bill Nye (Cornell Engineering '77) The Science Guy  will host the evening.


Taylor's lecture is part of the 40th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences conference in Ithaca, Oct. 10-15.


Why do scientists and explorers want to return to the Moon and settle it? Taylor says that lunar settlements will pave the way for a broad human presence on other planetary bodies. In many ways, the Moon is the eighth continent, he explains.


Taylor is the winner of the 2008 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Public Communication in Planetary Science. He has communicated science through children's books, a novel and a series of educational videos. In 1996, he collaborated on a Web site called Planetary Science Research Discoveries - PSRD (http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/) - and in 12 years, he has written 73 articles for PSRD about discoveries on the Moon, planets, planetary satellites, asteroids, comets and astrobiology. The site now gets 80,000 hits a month and its subscriber list includes people from 44 countries.


Contact: Blaine FriedlanderPhone: (607) 254-8093Cell: (607) 351-2610 bpf2@cornell.edu