[Chaos-l] minutes of June CHAOS meeting

[walter fowler]

There was a great turnout for Dr. Sheila Kannappan's talk last night at
Carol Woods.  Jayme says it looked to be half CHAOS members and half Carol
Woods residents (and there is some overlap between the 2 groups).  This was
another of our academic "science talks" but it was presented at a level that
was very understandable.  The topic was galactic evolution and there were
several takehome messages (and I may not have taken all of them home).
First, stars are so far apart that collisions almost never occur, even
during galaxy mergers.  Second, for their size galaxies are much closer
together than stars.  The correlary is that most galaxies are interacting
with other galaxies, even if they "don't seem that close" in the eyepiece.
Third, scientists like Dr. Kannappan are learning more about how these
interactions take place and what this says about the structure of the
universe.  Thanks to our speaker and to Jayme who has put together a great
series for the past couple of years.  We've got great talks coming up to
continue the series, too.  Hope to see you at these meetings and at
observing sessions.  Walter
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