Dr. Meredith MacGregor to Speak as Featured Guest for the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association’s Science Speaker Series

Kelly Bernatzky • June 23, 2021

On June 30 at 7pm, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) is hosting a live lecture presented by Dr. Meredith MacGregor. Her talk, “What’s the Space Weather Like on Proxima Centauri?” is part of our FREE Science Speaker Series and will be held via Zoom.


Stars (including our Sun) are active, periodically releasing bursts of high energy radiation called flares. These flares can destroy molecules in the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets and potentially even erode those atmospheres entirely. In order to understand whether any of our nearest neighbors are in fact habitable, we need to determine how frequent and how powerful these flares are. Dr. MacGregor will present recent discoveries from multi-wavelength observing campaigns, including the largest flare ever detected from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us that also hosts a potentially habitable planet. These new results are changing how we think about space weather and the potential for life on other planets — come learn how to be an astronomical meteorologist!


Dr. Meredith MacGregor is an assistant professor in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research group uses multi-wavelength astronomical observations to explore the formation and habitability of planetary systems. Her work has been widely covered in the popular press including Scientific American, Science News, and National Geographic. She is a Scialog Fellow, the Co-Chair of the NASA Infrared Science Interest Group, and the Associate Director of the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy (CASA). Dr. MacGregor is an alumna of the Maria Mitchell Observatory (MMO) National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF-REU) program. She later was a NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth & Planets Laboratory in Washington, D.C. after completing her Ph.D. in Astrophysics at Harvard University in 2017. 


To register for this event, please follow the link below:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nwdu6SHbQfGjgiZP7orLHQ

 

For the full Science Speaker Series schedule, please visit our website here:

https://www.mariamitchell.org/science-speaker-series

 

This series is generously presented by our lead sponsor, Bank of America, and additional sponsors, Cape Air, Cisco Brewers, and White Elephant Resorts. 


The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.

For Immediate Release

June 23 2021

Contact: Kelly Bernatzky, MMA Development Associate

kbernatzky@mariamitchell.org

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May 27. {1857} There is this great difference between Niagara and other wonders of the world, that is you get no idea from descriptions or even from paintings. Of the Mammoth Cave you have a conception from what you are told, of the Natural Bridge you get really a truthful impression from a picture. But Cave and Bridge are in still life, Niagara is all activity and change. No picture gives you the varying form of the water of the change of color; no description conveys to your mind the ceaseless roar. So too the ocean must be unrepresentable to those who have not looked upon it. Maria Mitchell would tour the Mammoth Cave and the Natural Bridge during her trip to the southern United States as Prudence Swift’s chaperone – I have written of these travels and Prudence before. Niagara Falls is a place she likely saw on her way to visit her younger sister Phebe Mitchell Kendall, who once lived with her husband in Pennsylvania. I was a bit surprised that she feels the way she does about the Cave and Bridge being well-represented by images but I do kind of se her point. But Niagara, the ocean, any moving body of water – she is right. You don’t fully comprehend it until you hear it, touch and taste it, see its colors, and feel it splash, sprinkle, or mist across your face. Niagara certainly mists across your face – sort of like a breezy day at the beach and the salt mist that slowly builds across your face and coats the beach grass so that it shimmers in the sunlight. JNLF

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By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • May 12, 2025
I have been watching it. Waiting. Today, I was rewarded with the scent as they have now started to open. From late fall, all through the winter and early spring, there is a very large patch of dirt with traces of roots and purple-like portions of some sort of plant. Then, they slowly start to send their shoots forth – up from that dusty pile of dirt come little greenish pips that become the leaves. Then, you start to see the stems tightened against the leaves and then lovely chartreuse buds are visible that then turn to white and slowly open from top to bottom. As soon as they star to open, I wait. Knowing that one morning I will walk by soon and then I will get a delicious waft of Lily of the Valley. I have written about this patch at the Mitchell House before. I have always been fascinated by the fact that these grow in full sun – they have no shade whatsoever. And this patch is old. I’m not sure how old – I do not think late nineteenth century but possibly – or maybe very early twentieth century. We have one or two images in the collection from the early 1900s but one does not show the ground, and the other not so much either. I also think this is one of the earliest flowering patches of Lily of the Valley on island – let me know if you’ve seen others this early. And in FULL sun to boot! But in any case, today was the day – May 5, 2025 – that I got the first waft. Saturday when I was here, they were not ready yet. But now, they are! And when I smell it, I know why it was my mother-in-law’s favorite flower. JNLF

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