Live Captioning Information
- Throughout Astronomy Days 2021, live captioning will be provided for all programs, with the exception of videos and movies.
- ASL interpreters are available upon request, please contact accessibility@naturalsciences.org at least 72 hours prior to the start of the program.
- Spanish captioning will be available on the NCMNS YouTube channel for all archived Astronomy Days 2021 programs.
MONDAY Jan 25th

Learn how planets go from small piles of rubble to large (sometimes habitable) rocky bodies.

Planet Building 101

Join us for our Citizen Science Adventures video premiere to learn everything you need to know to participate in the Spiral Graph citizen science project so you can make your own contributions to this important research!

Spiral Graph Video Premiere (Citizen Science Adventures)

With the help of planetarium software, we’ll tour the North Carolina night sky and identify planets and stars you can see with just your unaided eye on the next clear night.

Carolina Skies

The Moon: for millennia, Earth's nearest neighbor has inspired romance, poetry, science, exploration and innovation. Join the Raleigh Astronomy Club and NASA SSAs as we explore the Moon in real time over Moon Zoom!

Moon Zoom
TUESDAY Jan 26th

What can go wrong to make a rocket explode or a spacecraft crash? Find out in this special Astronomy Days Natural Sciences Classroom!

FAIL! How Rockets and Spacecraft Blow Up and Crash

In 1919 Astronomers from two British Observatories travelled to Africa and South America to observe a total eclipse of the Sun. There, they carried out an experiment to test Einstein's predictions that light is affected by gravity and that spacetime is curved by the same force.

No Shadow of a Doubt: The Einstein Test at the Eclipse of 1919 and After

Sure, we send spacecraft all over the Solar System, but how do we know they'll get to where we want them to go? This presentation covers some of the ideas and techniques we use to aim at targets billions of miles away, and get them there successfully.

Getting from Here to There

It's a special Astronomy Days Edition of Virtual Trivia Tuesday! Sign up to compete against friends and strangers with out of this world trivia questions designed to stretch your mind like matter in a black hole.

Astro Trivia

Stars give birds directional guidance for seasonal migrations. Lights may interfere with their routes and pose significant threats along the way. Let's talk about stars, lights and what we can do to help birds along their flyways.

Stars, Lights and Birds
WEDNESDAY Jan 27th

NASA is preparing to go back to the Moon — this time, to stay. How will this differ from Apollo, and what kinds of new things are we hoping to do this time around?

Return To The Moon

InSight has been hard at work on Mars for over two years now. Join us for mission updates on the InSight lander and what we have discovered so far!

InSight Mission Update – Two Years on Mars!

Astronomy collides with yoga! Discover the story behind the Orion constellation while moving through yoga poses!

Constellation Yoga: The Orion Story

Wonder what it's like to study astronomy? Ask UNC astronomy students your burning questions.

Chat with Astronomy Students
THURSDAY Jan 28th

The Supercluster team will be presenting the world's first searchable, interactive database of every living thing that has launched to space.

Supercluster Presents: The Astronaut Database

A view on the benefits and tradeoffs of investing in space exploration given today's economic, social and environmental concerns. Also includes 10 amazing NASA spinoff technologies.

Why Should We Explore Space?

Astronomy collides with yoga! Explore Orion and other prominent constellations while moving through yoga poses; natural history connections will also be shared throughout the program.

Constellation Yoga: Orion and Friends

The End of Everything is a wildly fun, surprisingly upbeat ride to the farthest reaches of all that we know.

Science Tonight: The End of Everything
FRIDAY Jan 29th

This entertaining presentation will explore 10 ways that stars (over their life cycles) can cause extinction, injury and harm on Earth.

Deadly Spheres: The Top 10 Ways the Solar System Can Kill, Maim or Really Really Hurt You

Four and a half billion years ago, Jupiter migrated into and back out of the inner solar system, wreaking gravitational havoc upon the planets there. Learn how this made life as we know it possible on Earth.

Jupiter – the Planetary Wrecking Ball

Learn about NASA's biggest and smartest robot ever — the Mars Rover Perseverance — landing on Mars in February this coming year!

NASA’s New Mars Robot Rover, Perseverance!

Learn more about the Artemis program: the hardware, science goals, and people including how North Carolina's Astronaut Christina Koch may contribute. Includes behind-the-scenes photos from the rollout of the new SLS rocket and testing at NASA facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi.

The Artemis Program: The First Woman and Next Man on the Moon

Curiosity has been exploring Mars for 8+ years. What have we learned so far, and what new questions did it cause to be asked?

Curiosity Mission and Update on Mars Exploration

There's weather in space, on other planets, the Sun and even on the Moon. We'll talk about storms bigger than Earth on Jupiter, sulphuric acid rain on Venus, planet-sized dust storms on Mars and more.

Wild Weather Across the Solar System

Grab a pencil and paper and come design your own planet. We'll talk about rings, moons and more!

Design-A-Planet Kids’ Craft

Have you ever wanted to talk to an astronomer? Join us for a live Q&A session with Dr. Patrick Treuthardt to learn more about spiral galaxies, what they mean for the study of dark matter, and how you can contribute to astronomical research in this live chat with a scientist!

Live Chat with an Astronomer (Citizen Science Adventures)

The Europa Clipper is designated for a launch in 2023. Find out what NASA's looking for, and how the question; "Is there life on Europa?" will be answered.

Europa Clipper: NASA’s Next Mission to Jupiter

Join us at our special Astronomy Days installment of Museum Movie Night: Where Science Meets the Cinema, where we will be featuring the genre-defining movie The Empire Strikes Back.

Museum Movie Night: The Empire Strikes Back

The Universe needs you! Join the Rebellion in this adventure to test your knowledge about the Empire in this super-fun, Astronomy Trivia game! Don't let the Empire distract you from getting the right answers faster than the rest. The winner will get a free Astronomy Days T-shirt, the best in all the Galaxy!

The Empire Strikes Back Trivia
SATURDAY Jan 30th

What happens when you take the Hubble Space Telescope and stare at a blank patch of sky for a very, very long time? NASA has done exactly that and we will learn about the Hubble Deep Field images and what they are teaching us about galaxies in the Universe.

Galaxies Everywhere: The Hubble Deep Field

As a millennium project, the American Museum of Natural History rebuilt the Hayden Planetarium into a whole new way of looking at space. Charting the observed universe in 3D allows us to see it from any position and reconsider if life could only be here and now, or might it be everywhere?

Seeing the Whole Universe: Are We Alone?

Sit down with astronomers to dissect what is true and not true in your favorite astronomy movies!

Astronomy in Film

This talk will feature sky stories from around the world, focusing on various cultural interpretations of constellations, the Moon, the Aurora Borealis and more! Note: This talk is directed toward a K-5 audience.

Sky Stories for Children

Drake’s Equation can be used to (gu)estimate the number of intelligent, technologically capable civilizations that are out there, somewhere, in the Galaxy today.

SETI: The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence

Lunar samples record the history of how our solar system formed and evolved. Studies of such samples reveal ancient and modern processes important for understanding how the Earth-Moon system formed and evolved.

The Value of Moon Samples

The giant planets of the Solar System hold some of the greatest mysteries in science. We will explore these mysteries in this program using OpenSpace software, a NASA-funded data visualization project to investigate the cosmos.

The Giant Planets in OpenSpace

Meteorologists are the scientists of all TV stations. Though their job is to talk about meteorology, many times they are called on to be experts in many other sciences, including astronomy and space science.

Being a TV Station Scientist

Steampunk Meets Spacecraft: Hybrid Automaton Rover – Venus

Join the Museum and SAS for a super-fun, rapid-fire Astronomy Trivia game! Test your knowledge of today's Astronomy Days programs and be declared the best in the solar system! The prize for the winner is a free Astronomy Days T-shirt!

Astronomy Days Trivia: Saturday Edition

We will control the 32" telescope at DSO and remotely image celestial objects, including Mars, Uranus, the Orion Nebula, the Crab Nebula, the Andromeda Galaxy and our Moon. In the event of clouds we will tour the facility and describe our research.

A Night Zooming to the Stars at the Dark Sky Observatory
SUNDAY Jan 31st

OSIRIS-REx accomplished a key part of its mission in October by collecting its samples from the asteroid Bennu. This presentation will show how it was done and what we have learned, and discuss what challenges remain in the mission timeline.

OSIRIS-REx – Success at Asteroid Bennu!

All scientists, especially astronomers, need to know how to code. We'll ask an astronomy question and answer it live using the Python programming language using NASA/JPL resources. No previous knowledge needed.

Coding for Astronomy

Due to launch later this year, Webb is NASA's next flagship space telescope. The telescope is the scientific successor of the famous Hubble Space Telescope, and will reveal many previously unseen facets of our Universe. Please join Dr. Klaus Pontoppidan for a journey through the science of Webb.

The Science of the Webb Space Telescope

Are we alone in the Universe? Is there really anybody out there? If so, why isn't anyone returning any our calls? If you've had these questions you're not alone and there just might be a lot of other people like yourself. Come explore the possibilities of life in our galaxy!

The Fermi Paradox: Why E.T. Can’t Phone Home

Join a virtual journey into the solar system as we explore the terrestrial planets and our small rocky neighbors — the asteroids and comets!

The Terrestrial Planets: Impacts and Origins

The NASA OSIRIS-REx mission will return samples from asteroid 101955 Bennu in September, 2023. Dr. Pierre Haenecour will provide an overview of the mission, the current key results, the predicted nature of the collected samples and plans for analysis.

NASA OSIRIS-REx Mission: Insight into the Origin of Volatiles Through the Analysis of Samples from Asteroid 101955 Bennu

Sam's presentation will be about his path to NASA and the STEM courses that got him there. He'll talk about entering NASA's apprenticeship to learn how to build dynamically scaled model aircraft and spacecraft.

Model Fabrication and My Path to NASA

Come explore and learn with NASA engineer Alan Sturgis about NASA’s vision and mission to the Moon through amazing iconic photographs and videos. He will inspire everyone to follow their passions whether on Earth or in space.

Earth Rise

Get ready for some out of this world fun as you craft a rocket orbiting in space! Using basic art supplies, kids of all ages will follow a NASA graphic designer as he guides them step-by step how to make this DIY craft. Adult supervision is required and goggles are recommended.

How to Make a Galaxy Spinning Craft

Show us your LEGO spacecraft creations! In this informal show-and-tell session, we will show off our LEGO creations and tell each other their stories. Feel free to join and see the engineering marvels, even if you have not build your own model. Official models and fanciful creations are all welcome!

LEGO Show-and-Tell

Join the Museum and SAS for a super-fun, rapid-fire Astronomy Trivia game! Test your knowledge of today's Astronomy Days programs and be declared the best in the solar system! The prize for the winner is a free Astronomy Days T-shirt!
