Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association Welcomes Dr. Darby Dyar as Featured Guest for January Science Speaker Series

Jan 12, 2024

NANTUCKET, MA — The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) announces that it will host Dr. Darby Dyar as a featured presenter for its Science Speaker Series. Her presentation “Looking for Life in Our Solar System: A Mars-Earth-Venus Comparison” will take place on Wednesday, January 24 at 7pm EST. It will be presented via Zoom. This event is free to all.


Since the dawn of civilization, humankind has wondered if human life on Earth is alone in the universe. Modern science refines this question to be about the search for water – where life began on Earth – on planets in our solar system and beyond. Recent NASA missions have focused on this issue through studies of subsurface ice on Mars, water cycles on the Earth, and the enigmatic clues of oceans and water left behind on Venus. This talk traces recent and emerging evidence about the presence of water on these three terrestrial planets.


Darby Dyar is the Kennedy-Schelkunoff Professor of Astronomy at Mount Holyoke College and Senior Scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. Dyar is a mineralogist and spectroscopist interested in a wide range of problems relating to the evolution of the solar system. She studies the redox state of iron and the abundance of hydrogen in solar system materials using Mössbauer, x-ray absorption, and FTIR spectroscopy. Dyar has pioneered the use of machine learning tools to interpret spectroscopic data. She is the Deputy Principal Investigator on the VERITAS mission to Venus and was a participating scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory science team. Her honors and awards include the G.K. Gilbert Award for outstanding contributions to planetary science from the Geological Society of America (GSA), the Hawley Medal from the Mineralogical Association of Canada, and the Eugene Shoemaker Distinguished Scientist Medal from NASA. She is a Fellow of: GSA, the Mineralogical Society of America, and the Geochemical Society. She earned her B.A. from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. in geochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Pre-registration is required. To register for this event, please follow the link below:

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1TP8z_TzRhqcWaDoopaJZg#/registration


This series is generously sponsored by our lead sponsor, Bank of America.


The Maria Mitchell Association was founded in 1902 to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. After she discovered a comet in 1847, Mitchell’s international fame led to many achievements and awards, including an appointment as the first female professor of astronomy at Vassar College. Maria Mitchell believed in “learning by doing” and today that philosophy is reflected in the MMA’s mission statement, programs, research projects, and other activities. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.


                                    ### 

For Immediate Release

January 12, 2024

Contact: Molly Mosscrop, Marketing Director

mmosscrop@mariamitchell.org

Recent Posts

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • 13 May, 2024
May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

Keep Calm and Bird On: May 2024

08 May, 2024
“If you don’t look, you don’t see. You have to go and look.” -Edith Andrews

Shards

By Jascin N. Leonardo FInger • 06 May, 2024
I have written of my love for sea glass and pottery shards in the past and the recent replacement of the sewer and water lines on Vestal Street created a small shard collection over the last month. Since the work required the asphalt to be completely removed (all twelve inches of it!) and the road to be dug up multiple times as they worked to remove pipe, relay new pipe, hook up the water meters, and install drainage and manhole covers, this resulted in the earth in the street being tossed about quite a bit. And, with that, came the shards! Some of these likely came from the sewer line (yes, yuck) but others came from being simply in the dirt of the road – which was not paved until 1946/1948. Pieces were likely tossed out at times, made to act as filler in holes, or simply tossed. So I found all sorts of pieces I will keep here at the Mitchell House. They included: a lovely piece with a red floral, many pieces of plates, glass, the top of a late nineteenth or early twentieth century (medicine) bottle, glass shards, a flattened spoon, a brass knob (found by a neighbor) some nails, a spike, pieces of a larger container or two based on the size and curve and coloring of the shards, and possibly a Wampanoag stone tool. One person’s trash is another one’s treasures! JNLF
Show More
Share by: