Looking Skyward

Look up into the sky on a clear night and you’ll see stars, hundreds of them, but for every one star you’ll see, Karen Vanlandingham is likely to see two.

Vanlandingham is an assistant professor of geology and astronomy at the University and director of the planetarium. Her area of expertise is binary stars which may look like single stars, but, when viewed through a high-powered telescope, are actually two stars that orbit each other.

“They are as big as the sun and it can takes hundreds and thousands of years for them to orbit each other,” Vanlandingham said.

They also explode, causing a nova and sending material into space.

“We can’t see inside stars but studying the material that is blown off, tells us something about the star’s life,” she said.

Valuable information for scientists studying stars.

Vanlandingham has been at the University for two years, and one of her great delights is in sharing her knowledge with free shows at the planetarium for children and adults.

Daytime sessions are held twice a week during the school year for kindergartners on up as well as for community groups including home schooled students, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

The second Friday of the month there is an adult evening series so popular reservations are needed.

“The kids are so excited and enthusiastic and the teachers apologize for their being noisy and disruptive,” Vanlandingham said.

“But that’s the kind of disruptiveness you appreciate when the kids want to share stories with me about something they saw in the sky.”

Vanlandingham, a native of Portland, Oregon, received her B.S. from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and her Ph.D. from Arizona State University.

Her newest project is a fundraising effort to raise a half million dollars to update the 40-year-old planetarium.

“We’re planning on a new dome, telescope, projector…everything,” she said. “It will be truly state of the art.”

Heavenly.