Live talk

A seasonal talk series for every equinox and solstice.We'll explore the stars, planets, constellations, and deep-sky using our Megastar projector, which produces a stunning night sky with 10 million stars. You'll be ready to go outside, look up and enjoy our amazing Colorado Skies. Bring your questions!

Discover how the University of Colorado is developing hardware on small satellites and rocket missions, and how we use these missions to train the students who will lead NASA’s future missions like HWO and beyond.

NASA’s Lucy Mission launched in October of 2021 and will be the first to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. By the end of its twelve-year mission, the spacecraft will have flown by a record-breaking number of asteroids for a single mission (eleven and counting!). Four and a half years into the mission, Lucy has passed through the main asteroid belt and is bound for its first Trojan encounter in August of next year. What has the Lucy team been up to?

From the earliest myths and philosophical speculations to today’s science fiction media, humanity has often told stories about life that is alien to us. In days of old the alien may have been a god or a monster on Earth, but, as we’ve learned more about our place in the cosmos, we’ve envisioned the alien beings of great power, possible ferocity, and utter difference to be out there among the stars. Our myths of extraterrestrial life stretch across millennia, revealing not only our wonder at the cosmos but also our hopes and fears about our own survival.

This talk explores how these narratives continue to shape the way we imagine our future. What happens when we envision a universe teeming with life? How do these stories guide our moral compass, frame our sense of belonging, or warn us against hubris? The kinds of stories we tell matter deeply.

Join us for an introduction to the night sky, the observable planets, the stars, and constellations. Then we'll lift off of the Earth to take a tour of the universe!