The NAU Planetary Defense Conference and Bill Nye

So I hinted at Bill Nye last post. Well. He was at NAU Wednesday, as was 300 other scientists, engineers astronomers and other science field related subjects. NAU was hosting an astronomy symposium for the week where hundreds of big names gathered into our campus for a week. Ironically I had no idea it was happening until I went to the show, campus didn't seem any more stuffed or space like.
Really, I think that's NAU's fault to not publicly announce it as they should have, for the conference was so cool.

By a stroke of good luck, a friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go see Bill Nye, which was an easy answer. The guy had me hooked on science and space and dinosaurs for my childhood. I would go as far to claim that there's not many students my age who don't know who he is.
Would you like to see him?
Oh, and I didn't get the best of images for this event, camera phone and no flash whathaveyou.

Tada. (Sorry for the far away image)

Yes, I got to see Bill Nye, in the flesh, crack jokes and talk about space. But you know what, everyone else there was cooler then he was. As much as it pains me to say this, the pedigrees of the committee was super impressive, more then being 'Bill Nye'. 900 people (300 people were top-notch members of their fields) were stuffed into Prochnow Auditorium (it's a gigantic movie theater essentially) to sit and listen to the heads of Planetary.org (   http://planetary.org/ ) discuss Near-Earth Objects and space. To quote Bill Nye, "900 people gathering to talk about rocks in space is a very cool". 

Oh, and the guy who opened the stage was Geoff Notkin from the series Meteorite Men. Have you heard of this show before? I sure hadn't. But after listening to him, I'm a fan. 

More Bill, sorry for the image quality. 

Essentially, the entire three hour talk was about protecting the earth from meteorites causing havoc. It was said that, this is the day and age that we as humans can stop a natural disaster (being a meteorite) and these Near-Earth Objects are a real threat. For me, it was a lot to take in, but I highly suggest you to check out planetary.org and wait for a podcast of the Flagstaff symposium. I'm not a space enthusiast anymore like I was growing up, but sitting in the crowd and remembering my old passion while being able to listen to these amazing talented people was truly wonderful.

 I walked back home that night looking up at the stars. 

(photos by me)