October was quite a busy month featuring several important annual astronomy and space-related events such as 100 Hours of Astronomy, World Space Week and the International Observe the Moon Night. Throughout the month we have highlighted numerous events carried by our IAU National Outreach Coordinators (NOCs) and other national communities around the world. We want to thank all for the diverse programmes implemented and for sharing these initiatives that benefitted both the general public and also students, especially focusing on underserved groups in remote locations, senior people and women and girls. Thank you very much for your efforts.
In August 2021, we have initiated a new triennium until 2024. Our new national representatives are now nominated, and we want to build a more representative outreach network internationally! We strongly encourage all amateur and professional astronomers, science outreach practitioners and professional communicators to reach out to our NOCs and join our IAU national outreach committees around the world. Please visit the IAU National Outreach Coordinators pages of your country and territory, reach out to your NOCs and join our national committees. If your country does not have a representative please consider becoming a NOC.
In the issue, we want to highlight the winner projects of the Astronomy@Home Awards, the initiative Canary Islands Astrophysics Drawer and encourage you to join the last two Globe at Night (GaN) campaigns for 2021.
Wishing you the clearest skies and good health!
Lina Canas, on behalf of the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Team
1) Astronomy@Home Awards Winners and Honourable Mentions Announced
Astronomy@Home Awards 2020 received over 400 events between April and August 2020 globally. The selected 50 events from 31 different countries are distributed across five awards categories.
"Under One Sky " call for proposals supports projects in and around the United Nations International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples celebrated on 9 August 2022. Projects must use cultural astronomy, astronomy outreach and communication to recognize indigenous knowledge, respect indigenous learning systems with a rights-based approach to indigenous learning.
The call is open to everyone and projects led by indigenous communities will be favoured. Proposals must be submitted online by 23:59 (your) local time on 31 December 2021.
a) Orthogonality of the Sun in Egyptian Temples
On October 19, 2021, the National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics (NRIAG) hosted the event of “Sun Orthogonal in Abu Simbel Temple". In a unique phenomenon where the Sun is perpendicular to the statue of Ramses II in the temple of Abu Simbel in southern Egypt.
b) 5th Azarquiel School of Astronomy (Online)
The 5th Azarquiel School of Astronomy will be held online between 15-19 November 2021. It will be devoted to promoting cultural exchanges, bridging the gap between the East and the West and promoting advanced-level teaching in Astronomy and motivating future research activities.
c) Re-transmission of talks by two Nobel Prize laureates
The Polish Astronomical Society made a public re-transmission of talks by two Nobel Prize laureates. These were invited talks during 40th Meeting of the Polish Astronomical Society. The talks are available in English.
4) World Space Week 2021: Contributions from the NOCs
The IAU National Outreach Coordinator (NOC) for Algeria reported that the Sirius Astronomy Association, African Astronomy Association, and in collaboration with the NOC Algeria, organised the "Algerian Women in Astronomy" Online Conference to highlight the inspiring women in the space science field and to learn more about their challenges faced and lessons learnt to future generations.
The IAU National Outreach Coordinator (NOC) for Bahrain celebrated World Space Week 2021 with a video highlighting the achievements of Arab women in space and astronomy. You can watch the video on Youtube: https://youtu.be/wY72bUNmxgs.
The IAU National Outreach Coordinator (NOC) for Ethiopia in collaboration with the Ethiopian Space Science Society, Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute organized an event where women researchers and leaders working in different sectors of space in Ethiopia shared their experiences and discussed the challenges they have faced and how they have overcome them. The event included keynote speeches and a panel discussion. 200+ participants have taken part in the event where the majority are students.
5) Join Globe at Night (GaN) for the Last Campaigns in 2021!
Globe at Night is an international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by inviting citizen-scientists to measure night-sky brightness and submit their observations. The last dates for the 2021 campaign are October 27–November 5 and November 25–December 4, 2021.
The relation between Astrophysics and the Canary Islands is intimate: the archipelago hosts an international research center and two world-leading observatories. In 2016, "Gaveta de Astrofísica" was born: a biweekly outreach section published in El Día, the most important newspaper of the archipelago with 128000 daily readers. With the motto "Every two weeks, state-of-the-art research made in the Canary Islands or by Canarians worldwide", the aim of this section is to approach science to its true owner, the general public, and to introduce local researchers who live in the islands or abroad. The "Gaveta de Astrofísica" repository is a drawer (as "gaveta" means) full of state-of-the-art pieces of research explained by their own makers, without intermediaries.
7) 2021 Global Hands-On Universe Conference Presentation Recordings Available
The recordings of the 2021 Global Hands-On Universe conference are a great resource for teachers, students, educators, and scientists. More than 100 videos (keynotes, presentations, workshops) are available on the GHOU Youtube channel, including quite a few talks by the IAU National Outreach Coordinators.
8) Plan ahead for NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Launch December 2021
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is targeted to launch December 18 and will serve as the premier deep space observatory for the next decade and explore every phase of cosmic history – from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, and everything in between.
a) STEM XR: Collaborative Interdisciplinary Workshop on Science Communication in Virtual Worlds
Location: Virtual
Date: 1 October 2021 - 1 January 2022
Website: https://stemxr.org
b) SciAccess 2021
Location: Virtual
Date: 12-13 November 2021
Website: https://sciaccess.org/
Japanese:https://bit.ly/36XeKZr
Translations are thanks to Akihiko Tomita, through the Astronomy Translation Network.
You can subscribe to the Japanese newsletter through the Japanese Amateur Astronomers Association (http://www.jaaa-astro.jp/jaaa-ml.html) or the Japanese Society for Education and Popularization of Astronomy (http://www.tenkyo.net/).
If you are interested in translating the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Newsletter into your language, please email public@oao.iau.org.
11) Contribute to the IAU Astronomy Outreach Newsletter
We’re always looking to include news about astronomy outreach, communication and public engagement from around the world in the next newsletter from the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach. If you have an astronomical event, job, opportunity, educational resource, or anything else that would be of interest to the astronomy outreach community, send us an email at public@oao.iau.org with more information.
You can send us your suggestions through the 4th for issue #1 and the 17th for issue #2 of each month. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
