"Cosmic Conversations" was a series of lectures that lasted from 2007 to 2015. Scheduled at 7 pm the first Wednesday evening of each month, there would be a speaker who talked about some cosmos-related topic. Afterwards, Laws Observatory would open from 8 to 10 pm, allowing for viewing of the heavens (weather permitting of course). As an added boon, the lights on Stankowski Field would be turned off, massively decreasing the light-pollution, improving the view.
Angela Speck
Pluto's Demise and Resurrection
Angela Speck
Why Astrology is Nonsense
Angela Speck
From Big Bang to Life - the Origin of the Elements
Alex Sehlke
From Big Bang to Life - the Origin of the Elements
Alan Whittington
Comet and Asteroid Impacts
(First Show)
Alan Whittington
Comet and Asteroid Impacts
(Second Show)
Zack Buck
Neutron Scattering
Nick Parmley
Connecting the Dot: a Cultural Tour of the Heavens
Past Talks
David Arrant
Talk 1: A Tour Through the Constellations
Talk 2: Saturn: Lord of the Rings
Sean Baldridge
Talk 1: The Elusive Neutrino
Michael Barnes
Talk 1: Dog Stars and Divine Hunters: Heavenly Bodies in Early Greek Poetry and Myths
Larry Brown
Talk 1: Cosmic Reflections on the Cultural Landscape
Zack Buck
Talk 1: Applications of Neutron Scattering and the Techniques Used to Advance out Understanding of Complex Materials
Dan Caputo
Talk 1: Spaghettification, and other ways the Universe is trying to kill you
Caitlin Casey
Talk 1: 20th Century Telescopes: Race to the Edge of the Universe
Signe Cohen
Talk 1: The Infinite Order: Religion and Astronomy in Ancient India
Adrian Corman
Talk 1: Lives and Deaths of Stars
Eric Cropp
Talk 1: Science is Going Green: How Astronomy gets Funded
Nelson De Souza
Talk 1: One Small Step: Building the Distance Ladder
Cori Fletcher
Talk 1: The History of Radio Astronomy
Val Germann
Talk 1: Telescopes, Optics and the Renovation of the Laws Observatory 16-inch 'Scope
Talk 2: Rooftop Sky Tour
Talk 3: What's Up: the Night Sky for the Winter/Spring Semester
Talk 4: Telescopes: How they work and what you can see with them
Rainer Glaser
Talk 1: Prebiotic synthesis of biological molecules in interstellar space
Linda Godwin
Talk 1: Exploring Space from Low Earth Orbit: Where do we go from here?
Suchi Guha
Talk 1: Power up with Plastics
Suklima Guha Niyogi
Talk 1: The Lives of Stars
Duane Hamacher
Talk 1: Under Aboriginal Skies: The astronomy of Indigenous Australian
Aaron Kaberline
Talk 1: Habitable Exoplanets and the Goldilocks Zone
Craig Kleuver
Talk 1: A Personal History of NASA Projects
Phil Knocke
Talk 1: Curiosity and Spirit: Missions to Mars
Harrison Knoll
Will you explode in space and other movie myths
ShunLin Liang
Talk 1: The Sun, Our Star
Ken MacLeod
Talk 1: It Came from Outer Space: Recent controversies regarding the K/T boundary
Bahram Mashhoon
Talk 1: The fate of the universe
Wouter Montfrooij
Talk 1: The Day That Time Began
Arielle Newgard
Talk 1: Islam and the Moon
Nick Parmley
Talk 1: Connecting the Dots: a cultural tour of the heavens
Rita Reed
Talk 1: Night-time Photography
Lanika Ruzhitskaya
Talk 1: Women in Astronomy
Talk 2: The Universe on Your Computer
Alex Sehlke
Talk 1: Volcanoes of the Solar System
Mark Smith
Talk 1: Was Galileo Really a Martyr for Scientific Truth?
Josh Tartar
Talk 1: Dust, Dirt, and Debris in the Solar System
Carsten Ullrich
Talk 1: Anthropic principle and multiverses
Mike Urban
Talk 1: Global Warming, Climate Change, and Impacts on the US
Todd VanPool
Talk 1: Man and Woman Circle the Hearth: Archaeoastronomy in the American Southwest
Giovanni Vignale
Talk 1: The Distance of the Moon: A physicist's improvisation on the Earth-Moon system, love, and the laws of physics
Mark Volkmann
Talk 1: Is the moon made of cheese? Misconceptions in Astronomy
Alan Whittington
Talk 1: Armageddon: Meteorite Impacts
Talk 2: Mars!
Talks 3 & 4: Comet and Asteroid Impacts!
Haojing Yan
Talk 1: HST, JWST and why they are important
Matt Connolly & Tom Zhang
Angela Speck
Talk 1: Planetary Nebulae - beauty in stellar death
​
Talk 2: Are we really gonna die? Myths about the end of the world and what the Mayans have to do with it
​
Talk 3: Pluto's Demise and Resurrection
​
Talk 4: Nuclear processes in the cosmos
​
Talk 5: Everything you ever wanted to know about the Moon, But Were Afraid To Ask
​
Talk 6: The rabbit in the moon and other lunar myths
​
Talk 7: Why Astrology is Nonsense
​
Talk 8: From the Big Bang to Life - the Origin of the Elements
These are in alphabetical order by last name
