Artist’s concept of NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. For 35 years, the probes have been beaming images and information back to Earth via a 23-watt transmitter. (Cited from an NPR article, Dec 2011)
Tentative Title: Voyager
Speaker: Paul Lewis
Abstract: 2012 will be the 35th anniversary of the Voyager spacecrafts. Let’s take “a jog back in time and talk about them,” and answer a couple of questions like ‘Where are today?’ & ‘How do they compare comparisons to today’s planet surveyors?’
Bio: Paul Lewis first got interested in astronomy in 1978 when he noticed an ad in an astronomy magazine for a telescope. He thought he just couldn’t live without it and bought the scope. Then Paul had to find someone to show him which end of the scope was which. He very quickly immersed himself into what would become not just a great hobby but my career. Paul came to the University of Tennessee in 1987 to show the night sky to the undergraduate astronomy classes. A few off campus school programs turned into many and now about 50 percent of his time is spent in East Tennessee public schools as well as private and civic venues. As Director of Space Science Outreach at UTK, he sometimes has difficulty trying to keep up with all the requests for programs but feels it is a great problem to have. (Cited from the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador website)
