Four bright planets — Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars — spread across the ecliptic from West to Southeast were the stars of the show at tonight’s “Meet the Stars” public observing event. We also viewed Pluto (maybe) and Neptune, and wrapped up the evening with the Ring Nebula (M57). Venus and Jupiter were bright enough to… Read more »
Departmental News
Fall 2018 Welcome Week
We had an impressive showing of SPS / Physics Club members in the courtyard today to catch up and welcome new students:
Alumni on Campus Doing R&D for Automated Characterization of Materials for Musical Instruments
Tom Nania (left, Physics, ’13) and Alex LeClair (right, Computer Science and Applied Math, ’16), both of whom worked in Prof. Levine’s astroparticle research group, are working together to build a machine to automate the process of characterizing wood to be used for hand-made musical instruments. Notably, Tom is now an Affiliated Scholar in our… Read more »
Biology-Physics Collaboration in IUSB X-Ray Lab
Seniors Levi Klopfenstein (Physics, left) and Skye McDonald (Biology, right) are starting a new collaboration to use the IU South Bend powder X-ray diffraction lab to distinguish calcite vs aragonite-structured carbonates in synthetic and natural samples.
Prof. Schimmrigk’s Summer 2018 Theory Group
I finally built up enough courage to interrupt Prof. Schimmrigk and his current research students, Deepu Sengupta and Johnathan Leece, for a photo.
Bird’s Eye View of IU South Bend Observatory
James Brosher, of IU Communications down in Bloomington, visited our campus this past weekend and used a drone to capture some bird’s eye views of our observatory. Thanks, James!