Explore the Solar System at Bernardsville Public Library

Wednesday, April 22 may be Earth Day, but at Bernardsville Public Library at 7:00 pm, we’ll be exploring the solar system with John Andrews, a mechanical engineer at Integrated Photonics. Using stunning astrophotos from space probes, land-based telescopes, and the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, Mr. Andrews will start from the sun and guide listeners on a visit to all the planets in our solar system. “Earth is a mere dust mote among them, circling in the narrow habitable zone around our star,” he says, “Our visit to each of the other planets will reveal the harsh reality of being too close or too far from the sun. We will see the surface of Venus photographed by the Russian Venera probes and the recent images of the surface of Saturn’s moon, Titan. The red planet, Mars, is under continual surveillance by orbiting satellites and robots crawling along its surface, providing us with magnificent up-to-date photographs. But the influence of our star actually reaches far beyond distant Pluto to the tenuous star dust in the Oort Cloud, the source of many of our comets.”

John Andrews worked for 21 years for Bell Labs in Murray Hill, and the past 12 years he has been at Integrated Photonics, Inc. in Hillsborough, NJ where he participates in growing crystals for fiber optics.

There is no charge to attend the program, but advance sign-up is requested. Register online at www.bernardsvillelibrary.org and follow the link from Adult Programs, or call the library at 908-766-0118 to sign up.