Seeing the Unseen at Astronomy Open House
by Ryan Cannon
An astronomy open house entitled
“Neutrinos in the Universe” was held
this past Thursday in the Otto Be
hrend Science Building. Dr. Roger
Knacke, who received his B.S. and
Ph.D. in physics at Berkeley, deliv
ered his third “Open House” presen
tation this academic year. Assistant
Professor of Physics Dr. Darren Wil
liams prepared impressive slides
which were easy to understand. The
audience also enjoyed music, com
posed in the 1750 s by astronomer
William Herschel.
Neutrinos, discovered in the 19205,
are one of the smallest things in the
universe. A neutrino is smaller than
an atom, and the word “neutrino” ac
tually means “little Neutral One.”
The first neutrino was not even seen
until twenty-five years after its dis
covery. Neutrinos are one of the re
sultants whenever two protons col
lide. Colossal amounts of energy are
involved in this collision, giving the
neutrino a tremendous amount of
speed. This occurs in stars like our
sun.
Neutrinos arc so small and interact
so little with matter that they can
travel through miles and miles of lead.
Matter is basically transparent to
them. Although most neutrinos make
it through matter, occasionally one
will not. It will hit the nucleus of an
atom and stop suddenly. Billions of
neutrinos attack the earth and you
each day. They are even present at
night because they can travel directly
through the earth to get to you. Dr.
Knacke accurately joked, “At night,
when you are sleeping, neutrinos are
still hitting you.” This sounds more
like a Steven King novel than as
tronomy. He then added that some
physicists actually call this event won
derful.
Since stars create neutrinos, Dr.
Knacke decided to discuss stars and
how they explode. Stars can be found
in a range of sizes. Our sun is one
hundred times wider than the earth,
which is like comparing the size of a
basketball and the head of a pin. The
core of the sun is like a nuclear fu-
WIN! IVlty,
GREAT DOOR PRIZES AT
HEALTH FEST '99
Wednesday, April 7, 1999
* RENT CAMPING EQUIPMENT FOR
ENTIRE WEEKEND ($l5O VALUE)
3 ONE-HOUR SESSIONS WITH A
PERSONAL TRAINER ($6O WMAJE)
DARTBOARD
ONE MONTH MEMBERSHIP TO THE
HAMOT WELLNESS CENTER
CERTIFICATES FOR FREE MASSAGES,
FITNESS MEMBERSHIPS, AN® MORE!
11 AM - 1:30 PM
Reed Union Commons
sion reactor and is an unpleasant 15
million degrees.
All stars convert hydrogen to he
lium. When all of the hydrogen is con
sumed, heat from the nuclear actions
disappears. Stars then begin to bum
other elements in an attempt to pro
long their life. Low mass stars how
ever cannot last long this way and
collapse into tiny dead stars. When a
high mass star runs out of fuel how
ever, gravity is still there and causes
the star to collapse at almost the speed
of light. The star’s atmosphere then
bounces outward, and the star ex
plodes in a Supernova. When a star
explodes this way, it is still visible for
a few months. The most recent ex
ample of this was the Supernova of
1987. But Dr. Knacke noted that this
was not a reason to worry . He said
that our sun will be around for the next
several billion years and won’t go
supernova
There are three types of neutrinos:
Electron, Muon, and Tau. Each neu
trino, it is believed, can change into
another type of neutrino and then
change back again. Neutrino de
News
tors can only view Electron neutrinos,
and during early experiments, this
caused confusion. A test was con
ducted and only half of the expected
number of visible neutrinos were
seen. The other types of neutrinos
were later discovered which ac
counted for the discrepancy in results.
Dr. Knacke’s presentation con
cluded in just under an hour. After
wards, the audience was invited to
view the moon, stars, and even Venus
through telescopes for the fust time
this year thanks to the weather. The
presentation was enjoyed by the au
dience. James Washburn, 02 DUS,
commented, “The open house was
very interesting, and the knowledge
that I gained in Astro 10 with Darren
Williams enabled me to enjoy it even
more.” The final astronomy open
house of 98/99 is at 7:30 on April 15
in room 101 of the Otto Behrend Sci
ence Building. All are welcome and
encouraged to attend.
The cast of the musical 8.R.U.N.0.5.
Leo Hanley, John Hodemy, John Hanley,
Left back:
David Grygier, Ryan Cannon, Jack Kichura
Thursday, April 1, 1999 - The Behrend College Beacon - page 3
SGA springs into action
iy Ayodele Jones
nan aging editor
Spring is here, and with this new
season the Behrend Student Govern
ment Association has experienced
some new changes. SGA’s main pur
x>se is to address student needs, and
with the addition of two new Sena-
tors, the Student Government will be
well on its way to accomplishing its
goals. Jose Orama 04 History, is
ready to serve the students. “As an
SGA Senator, I am willing to be at
the disposal of the students. Right
now I am concentrating on making the
upcoming elections a success by urg
ing the student body to turnout and
vote for their fellow classmates, can
didates. Jim Buzzard 06, EE said,
'Basically I have a lot of complaints
with the school, and a lot of people
liave a lot of complaints with the
school, I just want to try and solve
In addition to these new appoint
nents, SGA has been relatively busy
loing many things, including attempts
o get a FM radio station on campus.
Vt the current time, SGA is in the first
tages of researching, the radio sta
ion would be student geared and it
vould employ students as disc jock
T h
Be a c
for info.
eys, and student programming. The
budget process has been consuming
much of SGA’s time and yet they are
preparing for Spring elections for the
upcoming fall semester. The elec
lions are expected to be held on Apri
16.
Andrea Diplacido, vice-president
of SGA, considers the co-op book sale
held in January as SGA’s most impor
tant accomplishment so far, “although
many students did not “donate”
books, the books that were donated
for this purpose, were sold. We pro
vided a good service to students, be
cause that’s what were here for.” Sev
eral SGA committees are working on
problems brought to them by students,
the traffic appeals committee is
backed up, because of an increased
amount of student petitions. The Joint
Residence Council is currently work
ing with Hall Council to resolve con
tract submission problems with Hous
ing and Food Services.
Unfortunately, SGA has failed to
solve one problem, student participa
tion. DiPlacido notes “participation
could definitely be better, we have
not been successful at this so far, but
we hope with the prospect of a new
radio station, participation will in
crease.
8 8
6 4
o n
t s