{"336821":{"#nid":"336821","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Inquiring Minds @ Tech Public Lecture: Distant Horizons: New Worlds in an Age of Discovery","body":[{"value":"\u003Ch4\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDr. Shane Larson of Northwestern University will present a free public lecture hosted by the School of Physics\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGreat voyages of exploration have always been driven in large part by an insatiable curiosity to\u0026nbsp;know what is beyond the furthest horizon you can see. Five hundred years ago, the European\u0026nbsp;exploration of the globe was a central feature of the expanding scientific and artistic explosion we\u0026nbsp;call the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Today, we are once again witnessing an age of exploration\u0026nbsp;and discovery, as we push beyond the shores of Earth, looking deep into the far reaches of space.\u0026nbsp;You and I live in an age where, for the first time in human history, we are discovering and mapping\u0026nbsp;alien worlds. \u0026nbsp;Some of those worlds are not far from home, huddled around our own Sun but difficult\u0026nbsp;to travel to. \u0026nbsp;Some of those worlds are far across the Cosmos, spinning around other suns in other\u0026nbsp;parts of the galaxy. For the first time in history, we are seeing and probing these worlds with the\u0026nbsp;same age old questions in mind: Who are we? What is our place in the Cosmos? Are we alone?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn this talk, we\u0027ll talk about this new age of discovery in our own Solar System, and how our\u0026nbsp;understanding of the Solar System has changed over the past 40 years, during the first\u0026nbsp;reconnaissance of the Worlds of the Sun. We\u0027ll preview the upcoming visit to Pluto, and use that as\u0026nbsp;motivation to explore how the discovery of exoplanets around other stars is shaping our\u0026nbsp;understanding of whether our home around the Sun is commonplace or unique in the catalogue of\u0026nbsp;planetary systems.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Distant Horizons: New Worlds in an Age of Discovery"}],"uid":"27664","created_gmt":"2014-10-23 15:18:46","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 02:09:54","author":"Alison Morain","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2014-11-18T17:00:00-05:00","event_time_end":"2014-11-18T18:00:00-05:00","event_time_end_last":"2014-11-18T18:00:00-05:00","gmt_time_start":"2014-11-18 22:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2014-11-18 23:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2014-11-18 23:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"126011","name":"School of Physics"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78771","name":"Public"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:alison.morain@physics.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ealison.morain@physics.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}