A Day with the Milky Way

09 08 2023

Category: III.3.2, Results

A “Day with the Milky Way” was held at the UW Astronomical Observatory on July 29. The program of the event consisted of workshops and lectures prepared, among others, by the authors of the three-dimensional map of the Milky Way.

The event, organized as part of the implementation of the project, which received funding from Measure III.3.2 “Promotion of scientific research in the public domain”, held a series of workshops and popular science lectures. Their main topic was the analysis of the shape of the Milky Way. Research in this area was conducted by a team of astronomers led by Dr. Dorothy Skowron of the UW Astronomical Observatory. In 2022, Prof. Skowron received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for a project dedicated to a new method of discovering planets in the farthest parts of the Milky Way and other galaxies.

The workshop for elementary school students was conducted by Monika Sitek, head of the OA UW’s Northern Observatory Station in Ostrowik. Lectures on the Milky Way for high school students and adults were given by researchers from the UW Astronomical Observatory: Dr. Dorota Skowron, Dr. Jan Skowron and Dr. Przemyslaw Mroz. The researchers participated in the creation of a unique three-dimensional map of the Milky Way, which they presented in the pages of the prestigious journal “Science”.

(pictured: Warsaw Telescope and Cepheids in the Milky Way discovered by OGLE sky survey;
photo: Krzysztof Ulaczyk, Jan Skowron / OGLE, UW Astronomical Observatory)