Dr. Bryan E. Penprase
Pomona College Professor and author Dr. Bryan Penprase discusses his new book “The Power of Stars” and describes the variety of constellations, cosmologies and calendars from cultures across the world and through the centuries. Using a wide variety of sources, Dr. Penprase presents a visual feast of astronomy, with constellation maps, aerial views of aligned celestial structures, and images of the universe as created by a wide range of cultures. He will also discuss how our modern civilization responds to the sky, both with architecture and the dazzling array of new discoveries such as Dark Matter and Dark Energy, and how our modern picture of the universe arose from the work of astronomers such as Herschel, Hale, Hubble and others.
Dr. Bryan Penprase received a B.S. in Physics and an M.S. in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1992 from the University of Chicago. He served at both universities as both a Research and Teaching Assistant, was a Predoctoral Research Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and an NRC Postdoctoral Researcher at IPAC/Caltech in Pasadena. Dr. Penprase has been a professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Brackett Observatory at Pomona College since 1993. Dr. Penprase recently was awarded a Downing Exchange Award to become a visiting fellow at Downing College, Cambridge, in his work on quasar absorption lines. He also was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and an ASEE/JPL Summer faculty fellow. Dr. Penprase recently has been conducting research at Caltech, the Carnegie Observatories, and JPL using the Las Campanas Observatory, the Keck Telescope and Hubble Space telescope, among other facilities. He has worked extensively in many areas of astrophysics, primarily in observational astronomy related to the interstellar medium and star formation. Dr. Penprase most recently has focused his observing efforts to include observations with the Pomona College 1-meter telescope, and the Keck telescope in Hawaii.
Dr. Penprase’s research in astronomy and astrophysics has taken him around the world, to observe with telescopes such as the Australian AAT, the observatories of CTIO and ESO in Chile, Caltech’s telescopes on Mauna Kea and at Palomar, and the Nordic Optical telescope in La Palma, Spain. He has given astronomy tours and talks since 1986 at the Yerkes Observatory, in Williams Bay Wisconsin, and public sky shows at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, as well as a popular monthly planetarium show in Claremont at the Millikan Planetarium of Pomona College.
The main research problems of most interest to Dr. Penprase are related to spectroscopic observations of the intergalactic and interstellar medium, using both ground and space based telescopes to perform detailed studies of distant clouds of interstellar gas. Recently Dr. Penprase has been collaborating with the Gamma Ray Burst astrophysics group at Caltech, headed by Dr. Shri Kulkarni. His research catches a glimpse of the host galaxy of a Gamma Ray Burst, which is in the process of exploding at the other edge of the universe. Dr. Penprase is also collaborating with Caltech astrophysicist Dr. Wallace Sargent, in a study on the abundances of elements in the early universe, and the process of formation of the first galaxies, as revealed by absorption lines within quasars at distances as large as ten billion light years (looking back to a time when the universe was just 1/4 its present age!).
The absorption from the cold atoms and molecules in interstellar space may be analyzed to measure the temperature, density and pressure of the remote corners of the galaxy, and the early universe, and Dr. Penprase has pioneered in new techniques in performing remote sensing of this cosmic gas as well as in 3D mapping of the structure of our local galaxy using absorption lines to the interstellar medium and star formation. Dr. Penprase most recently has focused his observing efforts to include observations with the Pomona College 1-meter telescope, and the Keck telescope in Hawaii.
Dr. Penprase’s research in astronomy and astrophysics has taken him around the world, to observe with telescopes such as the Australian AAT, the observatories of CTIO and ESO in Chile, Caltech’s telescopes on Mauna Kea and at Palomar, and the Nordic Optical telescope in La Palma, Spain. He has given astronomy tours and talks since 1986 at the Yerkes Observatory, in Williams Bay Wisconsin, and public sky shows at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, as well as a popular monthly planetarium show in Claremont at the Millikan Planetarium of Pomona College.
The main research problems of most interest to Dr. Penprase are related to spectroscopic observations of the intergalactic and interstellar medium, using both ground and space based telescopes to perform detailed studies of distant clouds of interstellar gas. Recently Dr. Penprase has been collaborating with the Gamma Ray Burst astrophysics group at Caltech, headed by Dr. Shri Kulkarni. His research catches a glimpse of the host galaxy of a Gamma Ray Burst, which is in the process of exploding at the other edge of the universe. Dr. Penprase is also collaborating with Caltech astrophysicist Dr. Wallace Sargent, in a study on the abundances of elements in the early universe, and the process of formation of the first galaxies, as revealed by absorption lines within quasars at distances as large as ten billion light years (looking back to a time when the universe was just 1/4 its present age!).
The absorption from the cold atoms and molecules in interstellar space may be analyzed to measure the temperature, density and pressure of the remote corners of the galaxy, and the early universe, and Dr. Penprase has pioneered in new techniques in performing remote sensing of this cosmic gas as well as in 3D mapping of the structure of our local galaxy using absorption lines
