Launch Your Name into Space!
Everyone who has a "Galileo Moment" - an engaging astronomical experience - at our events will be given an Astronomy Trading Card as a memento of the event.
But ... it also acts as "key" to getting your name into space.
On the Astronomy Trading Cards is the web address of Canada's National "Year of Astronomy" website, www.astronomy2009.ca, where you can register your name.
Everyone does so will have his or her name placed aboard Canada's NEOSSat satellite to be launched into space by the Canadian Space Agency in 2010. The more events you attend, the more times you can register your name.
Click here for more information about the Galileo Moment program.
NEOSSat
The Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite is designed to scan the skies from space, hunting for asteroids that could collide with Earth.
The $12 million mission is being spearheaded by scientists at the University of Calgary. Orbiting 700 km above the Earth, the suitcase-sized satellite will use a 15 cm telescope to scan the sky close to the Sun where Earth-based telescopes cannot search.
Dr. Alan Hildebrand, holder of a Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science in the University of Calgary's Department of Geoscience, leads the international NEOSSat science team. "NEOSSat will give us terrific skies for observing 24-hours a day, guaranteed," says Hildebrand. Dr. Hildebrand also oversees the U of C's ground-based asteroid observation program using the Rothney Astrophysical Observatory's wide-field Baker Nunn telescope.
Click here for more on the NEOSSat mission.
Or go to NEOSSat's homepage.
http://www.NEOSSat.ca
Galileo's Telescope
Attend one of the IYA events around Calgary and you may have a chance to look through an authentic replica of Galileo's original telescope, a 21-power refractor with a lens 37mm across, tiny by the standards of even a beginner's telescope today. But with it, Galileo changed the world. We hope you'll be able to experience your "Galileo moment" with it as well.
