Austin Peay Department of Physics, Engineering and Astronomy

Del Square Psi: APSU Physics, Engineering & Astronomy Club chapter is hosting a chess tournament, April 25! With experienced and beginner brackets, $10 registration, and provided boards and pieces, all you need to bring is your A-game and appetite for pizza. This event is open to ALL Austin Peay State University students! 🍕♟️

Register --> https://bit.ly/4b0Guvb

Congrats to APSU SPS Chapter: Meleah Lanier (President), Mike Graff (VP), Jair Martinez (Secretary), Josh Rye (Treasurer), William Keener (Director of Chapter Relations), and Yuriy Holovchak (Director of Public Outreach). Great job!

APSU physics students win national recognition Austin Peay State University’s Society of Physics Students (SPS) chapter recently earned an Outstanding Chapter Award from the SPS National Office, a designation given to less than 10% of the SPS chapters at colleges and universities across the globe.

Free observatory nights are back beginning this Saturday, Sept. 23 Austin Peay State University’s Department of Physics, Engineering and Astronomy has announced its first two free public observation nights for the fall semester—Sept. 23 and Oct. 21, 2023.

Student Spotlight: Meleah Lanier’s transformative journey in the IRES program Meleah Lanier navigated a transformative academic journey in the International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program, focusing on the potential of chalcogenide glasses in superconductors. Funded by a National Science Foundation grant, the experience honed Lanier's resilience, problem-solv...

APSU education professors work abroad with NSF grant A group of faculty members from Austin Peay State University’s Eriksson College of Education traveled to France this summer as part of a three-year, $300,000 International Research Experience for Students (IRES) grant from the National Science Foundation. The team, consisting of Drs. John McConnel...

Experience the future of science: APSU's Governor's School for Computational Physics | ClarksvilleNow.com The Governor’s School for Computational Physics returned to Austin Peay State University (APSU) this summer, and the campus welcomed some of the brightest high school students in the state.

Students embark on journey of discovery at APSU’s Space Explorers Camp Space Explorers Camp is the College of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics’ latest science-themed summer camp and was hosted from June 12-16. It was designed to teach students ages 9-14 about space exploration and astronomy and provides foundational knowledge about planets, stars and th...

A friend sent us this today .. too cute

APSU engineering physics student Ethan Moss selected for NASA internship to pursue Astronaut Dreams - Clarksville Online - Clarksville News, Sports, Events and Information Clarksville, TN - Ethan Moss, an engineering physics major at Austin Peay State University (APSU), has been selected to join the Pathways Internship

Congratulations, Yuriy Holovchak!!!

Austin Peay student receives prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship Sophomore Yuriy Holovchak has become the first student at the institution to earn the prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship since 2013. Holovchak, a double major in engineering physics and computer science, was one of just 410 students nationwide to receive the honor, out of an estimated pool of o...

Happy ! 🌺

Try not to sneeze: Taken by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), this image displays the flower-like structure of WR 124's huge dust cloud. WR 124 (center) is a Wolf-Rayet star. These bright, massive stars produce a LOT of cosmic dust as they shed their outer layers, shortly before they explode in a supernova.

Getting déjà vu? Last week, you may have seen a different version of this image that combined views from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and MIRI. While NIRCam's near-infrared perspective is better at showing us the stars, cooler cosmic dust glows at the mid-infrared wavelengths MIRI sees in.

Download this image and learn more: https://bit.ly/3G34D7x

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

Rare chance to see 5 planets at once to take place over 6 sunsets Imagine being able to see more than half the planets of the solar system at once. That's what's going to happen for several days next week.

I think some of our students might agree...

Meleah Lanier, a physics major in the Austin Peay Department of Physics, Engineering and Astronomy, presented their research at last weekend’s Tennessee Council of Higher Education Honors Conference.

Lanier presented a poster titled, “Numerical Exploration of Morpho-Inspired Nanostructures for Tunable Structural Color.”

“I’ve been on this project for two years, and it is very near and dear to my heart,” they said. “When I graduate, I hope to continue research in the STEM field related to my studies during my physics degree.”

Lanier attributes their success to the support and guidance they’ve received from the Department of Physics, Engineering and Astronomy at Austin Peay.

“Austin Peay has provided me with top-notch professors and advisors to guide me through my degree and research projects from the moment I came here,” they said. “The department has offered so many unique opportunities to me that I wouldn't get elsewhere, and those opportunities have prepared me for graduation, graduate school, and beyond.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to complete my degree anywhere else.”

Hailing from Christiana, Tennessee, Lanier has made the most of their time at the university, serving as the president of Del Square Psi, the physics club, and participating in the Honors Program and chess club.

APOD: A Triple View of Comet ZTF (2023 Jan 31)
Image Credit & Copyright: Javier Caldera & Miguel Gracia
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230131.html

Explanation: Comet ZTF has a distinctive shape. The now bright comet visiting the inner Solar System has been showing not only a common dust tail, ion tail, and green gas coma, but also an uncommonly distinctive antitail. The antitail does not actually lead the comet -- it is just that the head of the comet is seen superposed on part of the fanned-out and trailing dust tail. The giant dirty snowball that is Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has now passed its closest to the Sun and tomorrow will pass its closest to the Earth. The main panel of the featured triple image shows how Comet ZTF looked last week to the unaided eye under a dark and clear sky over Cáceres, Spain. The top inset image shows how the comet looked through binoculars, while the lower inset shows how the comet looked through a small telescope. The comet is now visible all night long from northern latitudes but will surely fade from easy observation during the next few weeks.

https://www.instagram.com/astrocld/
https://www.instagram.com/mxguelastro/

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=230131

APOD: Pleiades: The Seven Sisters Star Cluster (2022 Dec 05)
Image Credit & Copyright: Blake Estes (iTelescope Siding Spring Obs.) & Christian Sasse
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221205.html

Explanation: Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen with the unaided eye even from the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident. The featured 11-hour exposure, taken from the Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Ta**us). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight.

https://www.instagram.com/thescopesmith/
https://www.instagram.com/sassephoto/

Starship Asterisk* • APOD Discussion Page
http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=221205

Austin Peay invites public to see lunar occultation of Mars | ClarksvilleNow.com Austin Peay State University’s Department of Physics, Engineering and Astronomy will give children and adult astronomy enthusiasts a chance to observe a lunar occultation of Mars.

Austin Peay physics professor’s work featured in American Journal of Physics The paper – titled “Surface plasmon resonance sensing in the advanced physics laboratory” – is featured on the cover of the November edition of American Journal of Physics, a publication of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

ATTN STUDENTS! ASTR 1010/1011 will be offered during winter term 2022! You could earn a natural science credit in just 4 weeks! See the APSU course schedule for more information.