Monrovia High School has been one of six schools in the nation chosen to host a downlink from the International Space Station this year! The downlink event will take place on Tuesday, March 5th. All the 5th graders and all the 8th graders in MUSD will travel to the MHS Auditorium to be part of this amazing event!

As the kick – off for this event, MHS is hosting their first Science Expo tomorrow, Saturday March 2 10-2 p.m. and a star parety 6-8 p.m.

This fun, free, public family event includes demonstrations from the Santa Fe Dam RC Modelers Club, UniTek lazers, FIRST Robotics, and GAVRT Radio telescope. 

Other booths will include glider making, Pinewood Derby and MHS Chess Club workshops, and information from the Deep Space Network, NASA/IPAC (CalTech Infrared Processing and Analysis Center) , the Planetary Society. The Sidewalk Astronomers will be sharing views of the sun through several different solar telescopes. Food will be sold, including hot dogs, pizza, and smoothies.  This event will be on Saturday, March 2nd in the MHS Quad from 10am to 2pm. You can stay later, and there wil be a star party from dusk until 8 p.m. The school address is 845 W Colorado Blvd  Monrovia, CA 91016

In other news, I talk about the appearance of Comet PanStarrs in our skies beginning about March 10 through early May in my monthly video.  The comet will be naked eye visible (somewhere between the magnitude of the bright star Sirius below Orion, and the dipper stars, but also extremely low to the horizon.  An unobstructed view down to the horizon will be necessary - the comet will not get above 10 degrees above the horizon in March, higher but fainter in April and May. Binoculars will help you pull the comet out of the murky horizon. 

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWC5xAxKTU0

Archive site with many formats http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-view.cfm?WUID=1424

Hope to see you Saturday for some fun with the sun!



-- 
Jane Houston Jones
Monrovia, CA
http://jane.whiteoaks.com/ http://twitter.com/jhjones 
What's Up For March? Will Comet Pan-STARRS be bright?
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-archive.cfm
Youtube: http://youtu.be/jYs6Mw744VA
2013 At A Glance 
http://jane.whiteoaks.com/2013/01/07/whats-up-in-2013-at-a-glance/