SFA
Physics, Astronomy and Engineering News
February 11, 2004

Seminar for Thursday

Title: "Ocean Optics"

Speakers: Dr. Deric Gray

Time: 4:00 PM on Thursday, February 12th

Place: Science Room 334

Dr. Gray graduated from Texas A&M University and has been a part of our department since September of last year. He will tell us about some of his dissertation work.

The department has weekly seminars on most Thursdays at 4:00 PM. All students and faculty are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served before the seminars. Here is a list of our future seminars future seminars: http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/seminar.html.

Engineering Luncheon

Jim Morris of TSPE and ASCE called recently as invited all engineering students to a free steak dinner at Outback in Lufkin on Wednesday, February 18th at noon.

Dr. Downing has offered to drive a group of SFA Engineers to this meeting. Please call him at 468-2290 if you are interested. You can leave a message. Seating is limited to 12 students.

TSPE and ASCE are organizations for engineers. You'd have the opportunity to visit with a few engineering, hear a talk about engineering at UT Tyler, and have a free steak dinner.


Physics Olympics

Every spring, local high school students gather at the SFA campus to engage in friendly competitions with physics themes. The Society of Physics Students and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Stephen F. Austin State University will be holding a Physics Olympics for area high school students on the SFASU campus on Saturday, March 6, 2004.

SFA Observatory

Public Viewing Sessions at the SFA Observatory have been scheduled for Saturday, Feb 21 at 7pm and Thursday, May 6th at 8pm.

Contributors Links

Impressive Color Images of Mars - Private Image Processing
http://lyle.org/mars/

Raw Images
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Watch NASA TV Online for updates
http://www.nasa.gov/ram/35037main_portal.ram

Hubble Images
http://wires.news.com.au/special/mm/030811-hubble.htm

What If Dark Matter Really Doesn't Exist?
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/09/128223&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=160

High-voltage lines, negative ions and rats
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/159773_ratzone07.html

One step closer to superconductors
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/0202/p12s01-stss.html

Oxygen at Extrasolar Planet, a First
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/extrasolar_blowout_040202.html

Thanks to Tommy Gober, Heather Dalton, Adam Blye, Larry Luther, Dr. Norman Markworth, and others for the links and information above. Feel free to send any interesting links that you find. This email message is sent to students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the department. If you would like to be removed from the emailing list or are getting multiple copies of these newsletter, then feel free to reply to this message with your request.

Clear skies,
Dan Bruton
astro@sfasu.edu