News Release - Oct. 29, 2007

October 29, 2007

NOTE TO EDITORS AND REPORTERS: For more about Comet Holmes and to interview Professor Milan Mijic or Cal State L.A. astronomy and physics students, please contact the Cal State L.A. Public Affairs office in advance at (323) 343-3050.

 

500,000 times brighter this time:
A free public viewing of Comet Holmes

Cal State L.A. astronomy, physics students welcome guests for rare celestial sighting

 

Los Angeles, CA -- Comet Holmes, known for more than 100 years as a regular comet, had a sudden outburst last week, becoming more than a half a million times brighter, prompting Cal State L.A. physics and astronomy students to host a free public viewing. It will be held from Greenlee Plaza on the Cal State L.A. campus Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 30-31, starting at 6:30 p.m.—weather permitting, of course.

 

According to Milan Mijic, professor of physics, “It can be seen now with the naked eye as an ‘extra’ fuzzy star in constellation Perseus. It has a most unusual appearance when viewed with a telescope or binoculars. It’s been 10 years since the last bright comet.”

 

For more details and pictures of Comet Holmes, go to: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html or http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/10862521.html.

 

Mijic, who received his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology, is an expert in astronomy and cosmology. With Cal State L.A.’s Computer Science Professor Elaine Kang and Art Professor Tony Longson, he currently runs the National Science Foundation-funded project in science visualization (http://sci-vi.calstatela.edu). He has presented numerous public lectures in astronomy, including one recently on “The Modern Cosmological Paradigm: Infinite, Eternal, Evolving Universe.”

 

Cal State L.A. is located at the Eastern Avenue exit, San Bernardino (I-10) Freeway, at the interchange of the 10 and 710 Freeways. (Public permit dispenser parking available in Lot 2 or upper level of Parking Structure A.)

 

For more on the free comet viewing, call the Cal State L.A. Physics and Astronomy Department at (323) 343-2100.

 


Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 200,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to a unique university center for gifted students as young as 12. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH- and Rockefeller-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu

 

 

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