This Newsletter brings some exciting opportunities to get involved in dark and quiet sky protection. During our Dark and Quiet Skies month in May, you will have the opportunity to learn about the dual issues of light pollution and satellite constellation interference, discover ways to move your community to act to protect our dark and quiet skies (not to mention our ecosystems and our well being) from these threats, and pledge to take a step forward for dark and quiet sky protection. You are also invited to engage with the UNESCO International Day of Light (IDL) on 16 May. With both IDL and our Dark and Quiet Skies programme, you can share your events with the world, and maximise the reach of your dark and quiet skies activities.
As always, we would like to thank our National Outreach Coordinators for all the work they do to inspire the next generation of astronomers and incite awe in their communities.
May your skies be dark and quiet,
Kelly Blumenthal, on behalf of the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Team
Dark and Quiet Skies 2023
We at the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach are proud to introduce this year's Dark and Quiet Skies initiative. The Dark and Quiet Skies project raises awareness about the need to preserve dark and quiet skies. These two elements – dark and quiet – go hand-in-hand but are not necessarily the same. Dark sky protection arises from light pollution abatement, policy, law, and activism across the electromagnetic spectrum. Quiet sky protection refers to the threat posed by satellite constellation interference and is the primary concern of our partner, the IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS).
Through this project, people will learn about the importance of dark and quiet skies for human culture, heritage, and health, in addition to the health of our ecosystems and the importance of dark and quiet skies for astronomy research.
1) IAU OAD Mobility Funding
The IAU Office of Astronomy for Development has announced that mobility funding is available through the Royal Astronomical Society for establishing or nurturing research, education and/or development-related collaborations between the United Kingdom and countries where astronomy research is not well established. The call is a partnership between the Office of Astronomy for Development and the Royal Astronomical Society. The deadline to apply is 3 May 2023.
2) UNESCO International Day of Light, 6th Edition
It is our pleasure to welcome everyone to participate in the 6th edition of UNESCO's International Day of Light. The International Day of Light (IDL) is an annual United Nations observance raising awareness of the broad societal importance of light science and technology across diverse sectors of society and in diverse fields such as communications, energy & healthcare, as well as art and culture. IDL is celebrated every year on May 16, the scientific anniversary of the first operation of the laser by physicist Theodore Maiman. Since its first proclamation in 2018, more than 2200 events have taken place in over 103 countries and have seen targeted science outreach events around the world at all levels reaching a global audience estimated at over 2 million.
A key objective for the 6th edition is to gather deeper insights into the challenges faced by communities in organising events, through the online IDL Event Organiser Survey. We encourage you to reach out to us to learn more about how you can engage with the global celebrations. Registration for 2023 is open. Fill out this simple form to be officially recognised as an IDL event. Come join us in yet another fruitful global celebration!
A major issue of concern at this event was the inaccessibility of the Jupyter Notebook editor for screen reader users. Since Jupyter Notebooks have become a de facto standard in scientific research, their lack of accessibility is a large barrier to disabled students and researchers pursuing STEM, including astronomy. This year, STScI has undertaken a project, Astronomy Notebooks for All, to improve the accessibility of scientific outputs from Jupyter Notebooks, and on 13 April 2023, STScI will also host a Day of Accessibility to raise awareness around accessibility in astronomy.
Content courtesy of Dr Patrick Smyth (Iota School), Jennifer Kolter (STScI), and Scott W. Fleming (STScI).
4) A Citizen Science Double Feature! a) Planet Hunters
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is providing us with a huge amount of data that lets us look for planets outside of our own Solar System. The citizen science project, Planet Hunters TESS, offers an opportunity to address questions such as how our own Solar System formed.
This month, they are classifying Sector 61. The data comprises brightness measurements of 20,000 bright stars that were observed by TESS. Some of these stars are eclipsing binaries, and some are variable stars, and, of course, some have planets orbiting around them. What kind of planets will you find in this part of the sky? Join TESS in its search at this link.
b) Gaia Vari: Help Discover the Secrets of the Milky Way
A new citizen science project Gaia Vari has just launched on Zooniverse. The project is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and supports Gaia variable stars classification. Its main objectives are to build a community around the Gaia mission and classify the time-series dataset for interesting variable star cases.
Gaia is an ESA mission to survey the Milky Way and its local neighbourhood in order to build the most precise 3D map of our Galaxy ever produced. As the spacecraft scans our Galaxy, it enables monitoring of the variations in the brightness of over 2 billion objects. Citizen scientists participating in Gaia Vari will help to parse this massive data set by classifying variables, identifying otherwise incorrectly classified objects, discovering sources showing peculiar variability behaviour, and helping in training and validating classification toward the next Gaia data release in 2025.
b) Brunei, Timor Leste and Vietnam
Our National Outreach Coordinators from Brunei Darussalam, Timor Leste and Vietnam will organise several astronomy outreach activities in Timor Leste to educate the public about the wonders of the Universe and raise awareness about safe ways to enjoy the total solar eclipse that will take place later this month. The team has prepared presentation materials in 4 languages – Tetun (one of the official languages of Timor Leste), Indonesian, English, and Portuguese – and has gathered 1000 solar eclipse glasses for their various events.
6) Opportunities
a) Free Workshop on How to Communicate Climate Change with Astronomy
This free workshop by Professor Travis Rector (University of Alaska, Anchorage) will present strategies on how to have students and the public leave your class or outreach effort feeling informed, hopeful, and ready to address the problem of climate change. Join online (for free) on 28 April 2023. For more information about this free workshop on climate change and to register, click this link.
b) Falling Walls Call 2023
More than ever, public trust and involvement in science have an important role to play in addressing global challenges. Science Engagement can help us achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and shape more inclusive and equal societies. With the Falling Walls Global Call, the organisation welcomes projects that actively engage the public with science through participatory formats of all kinds and sizes.
Do you know of or run a Science Engagement initiative that engages the public actively with science? Nominate or apply for our Falling Walls Global Call 2023 in the category Science Engagement. The Global Call is now open! The deadline is 1 May 2023.
c) The National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications Call for Applications
The National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards celebrate the contributions of science journalists and communicators (both professionals and researchers) from around the world. In addition to these awards, they will develop a series of professional development training opportunities for those recognised through the programme. For more information about eligibility for the National Academies awards programme, click this link.
7) Cool Resources
a) GlobalSCAPE Workshop Resources [Content in English] The GlobalSCAPE project aimed to understand the global landscape of science communication, focusing on the lesser-heard voices around the world. As a part of this project, they created two workshops for science communicators: one on Global Relevance in Science Communication, and another on Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Science Communication. To download the materials from the workshops, including the recordings, check out this website.
b) Research Highlight: Negativity drives online news consumption [Content in English]
In a recent article from Nature Human Behaviour, authors Claire E. Robertson, Nicolas Pröllochs, Kaoru Schwarzenegger, Philip Pärnamets, Jay J. Van Bavel, and Stefan Feuerriegel discuss the correlation between having negative words in an article's headline and the article’s reach. Based on an expansive study of articles, they found that each additional negative word in a headline increased the click-through rate by 2.3%. Read the article, Negativity drives online news consumption, here.
c) Virtual Moon Atlas (VMA), Version 8 [Content in English]
Since 2002 and its first release, VMA has been downloaded approximately 1.9 million times worldwide. It is used mainly by amateur astronomers, but also for several books and magazines, and in several observatories, universities, websites and blogs. The new edition features the addition of new data, images, and maps, and two new modules to improve the possibilities of processing data specific to the Moon. Find out more about the Virtual Moon Atlast here.
d) Science Curriculum Terms in BSL from the Scottish Sensory Centre [Content in English and British Sign Language]
This app provides a glossary of over 1000 STEM (including astronomy, biology, chemistry, geography, mathematics, and physics) terms in British Sign Language. For more information about this sign language STEM glossary, check out this website.
8) IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Newsletter in Non-English Languages
Our newsletter is being translated into the following languages:
Arabic
Translations are thanks to the members of the Bahrain Stargazers Astronomy Club.
Chinese (Simplified)
Translations are thanks to Dr Chen Cao, Shandong Astronomical Society (SDAS) of China.
French
Translations are thanks to the Club d'Astronomie de Tabarre (CAT), a subset of the Haitian Astronomical Society (SHA). Translations of previous Newsletters into French were thanks to the Haitian Translation Group of Astronomy and are still available on this page.
Galician
Translations are thanks to Martin Pawley of the Agrupación Astronómica Coruñesa Ío in Spain.
Italian
Translations are thanks to Eleonora Piromalli of AstronomiAmo in Italy.
Portuguese (European)
Translations are thanks to Catarina Leote and João Ferreira through the Astronomy Translation Network Portuguese Language Group.
Spanish
Translations are thanks to Andrea Ahumada of the Observatorio Astronómico, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, and Ileana Andruchow of the Instituto Astrofísica de La Plata, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. For translations of previous Newsletters in Spanish, thanks to Emílio Zuniga of the Association of Amateur Astronomers in León, Nicaragua, click here.
If you are interested in translating the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Newsletter into your language, please email public@oao.iau.org.
9) Contribute to the IAU Astronomy Outreach Newsletter
We are always looking for material about astronomy outreach, communication and public engagement from around the world to include in our next IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach Newsletter. 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.
Please send us your suggestions through the 4th for issue #1 and the 17th for issue #2 of each month. We look forward to hearing from you!
