The next meeting of the Chicago Astronomical Society will be on
Saturday, February 8, 2025
at the
Cernan Earth and Space Center.
Meeting Agenda:
5:30 PM -- Astro-talk over pizza and soft drinks
6:15 PM -- The LECTURE will begin
7:30 PM -- If the weather permits there will be telescopic viewing of the Moon, Mars and Jupiter.
Speaker: Ms. Signe Mason
Topic: Variable Stars: Keys to the Universe
About the Presentation:
Glimpse into the fascinating universe of variable stars – the stars blinking in a cipher, that when solved, let us
measure the size of the cosmos. The great astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt was the first to decode this cipher in
1912. A decade later, the eminent astronomer Edwin Hubble used her work to prove that the universe extended beyond
our Milky Way and thereby increased the size of the known universe by a million times. What exactly are variable
stars? How are they so useful in astronomy? And what can their history reveal to us about the progress of science?
Signe will address these questions, then highlight her research on the unusual variable star V1719 Cygni. She will
guide you through her research process, show the results of the project, and explain what we can learn from them.
About our Speaker:
Ms. Mason recently graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelor's in Astrophysics.
While there, she participated in research projects classifying variable stars for Professor Bryan Dunne and simulating
black holes in Professor Charles Gammie's Computational Astrophysics Group. Signe is the social media coordinator for
the CAS and recently created the Society's official Instagram (@chi.astro.soc) and BlueSky (@chi-astro-soc.bksy.social)
pages. She is passionate about astronomy outreach and delighted to be delivering her first public talk.
