We’re running a membership drive this month – our goal is 150 new members – and as a part of it we’re including this blatant clickbait series… Besides, it’s a chance to tell some of the funny stories that come up during cloudy nights at the VATT! The old astronomer tells the tale… People think that astronomers come in two varieties, observers and theorists. But in fact there is a third group, a lively bunch of laboratory experimentalists who help the rest of us understand what we observe and what we need theories to explain. For example, it’s not enough to take spectra of stars or planets; you have to know what each of those lines and dips in the spectra mean. That requires work in the lab to measure the spectra of pure elements, or minerals, or the kinds of gases you might expect to find in a planet’s atmosphere. With the advances in advanced visible and infrared detectors in the … Continue reading →