by Victor Davis, Program Chair

A Musician Investigates Space Weather
The AAAP’s first meeting of the new year 2026 will take place in Peyton Hall on the campus of Princeton University on Tuesday, January 13^th at 7:30 PM. As usual, the meeting is open to AAAP members and the public. Participants can join the meeting in-person at Peyton Hall or log in to the Zoom session as early as 7:00 pm to chat informally before the meeting begins. The evening’s guest speaker will be Dr. Jamie Rankin, Research Scholar and lecturer in astrophysical sciences at Princeton University. Dr. Rankin will talk about her work as Project Manager for the Voyagers’ last gasp; observing the interaction between the solar wind and interstellar medium as these spacecraft (still transmitting data since their launch in 1977!) leave the Sun’s influence. She’ll also speak more broadly about how the Sun interacts with the interstellar medium and about the Princeton-led Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission launched this past September.

Options for Attending the Meeting
You may choose to attend the meeting in person or participate via Zoom or YouTube as we’ve been doing for the past few years. (See How to Participate below for details). Due to security concerns, if you log in before the host has set up internet connectivity in Peyton Hall, you may need to wait in the Waiting Room for a few minutes until the host is prepared to admit you into the meeting. You’ll need to unmute yourself to make comments or ask questions. It’s polite, though not required, for you to enable your camera so other participants can see you. The meeting will be recorded and edited for posting to our club’s YouTube channel.

Join us for our “meet the speaker” dinner
Dr. Rankin will be joining us for our traditional “meet the speaker” dinner at Winberie’s before the meeting.  Our reservation is for 5:45 pm Tuesday, January 13th. Please contact the Program Chair if you plan to attend.

Here’s the anticipated agenda for January 13, 2026’s monthly meeting of the AAAP:

Getting to Peyton Hall
The parking lots across the street (Ivy Lane) from Peyton Hall are now construction sites, unavailable for parking. We’ve been advised by the administration of the astrophysics department that we should park in the new enclosed parking garage off Fitzrandolph street and walk around the stadium and athletic fields. Here’s a map of the campus and walking routes from the parking garage to Peyton Hall. The map shows the recently completed East Garage. Not shown is an access road Sweet Gum that connects from Faculty Road to an entrance at the lower left corner of the garage. Stadium Road connects from Fitzrandolph Road to another entrance at the opposite corner (and higher level) of the garage. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from the parking garage to Peyton Hall.

How Our Sun Interacts with the Interstellar Medium
This past September 24^th, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying, in carpool-like fashion with two other “ride along” missions, NASA’s IMAP spacecraft. The Princeton-led mission, involving an international team of suppliers and institutions, will examine how solar dynamics interact with the interstellar medium.  Dr. Rankin is the instrument lead for SWAPI (Solar Wind and Pickup Ion), one of ten instruments carried by IMAP. In the coming months, IMAP and its accompanying spacecraft will take up residence at L1, a stable location about a million miles sunward of the Earth. From there, IMAP will investigate how the solar wind, a continuous stream of particles emitted by the Sun, interacts with the interstellar medium; how these particles mysteriously get accelerated from their origins to the farthest reaches of the solar system, and the outermost boundary of the heliosphere. Dr. Rankin will discuss the objectives and observations of IMAP, and her role as Project Manager for Voyager data as it passes the outer boundaries of our Sun’s influence.

Jamie Rankin, PhD
Still in her mid-30s, Dr. Rankin is young to be an instrument lead on such a major NASA mission as IMAP. She supervises the instrument from a technical perspective, and leads the team interpreting and analyzing the data it collects.

Dr. Rankin earned bachelors’ degrees in music composition and physics from the University of Utah. She’s a talented musician. Conversations with other musicians and also with academics convinced her that a “day job” as a scientist would give her “the freedom to explore and pursue musical endeavors as I wish, without the concerns for trying to make ends meet.” She went to graduate school at Caltech, where she helped build EPI-Hi, ( a charged particle detector quantifying high energy particles  ) now flying through the Sun’s corona on the Parker Solar Probe. Her work on this instrument introduced her to Princeton astrophysicist David McComas, original instrument lead on SWAPI, who promoted her into his original role and invited her to join his research team at Princeton. Dr. Rankin sees it as part of her role to play that mentorship forward.

How to Participate (Links)
Zoom & YouTube Live
Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Time: January 13^th, 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
Topic: AAAP January Meeting-Prof. Jamie Rankin, Princeton Univ, Voyagers, the Sun and the Interstellar medium
Time: January 13^th, 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Meeting ID: 894 5145 9993
Passcode: 663422
Join instructions

....
Click the above icons for Zoom and YouTube

AAAP’s library of monthly meetings is available on the club’s YouTube channel. December’s edited meeting featuring a presentation by Princeton University PhD candidate Janxuan Li “A Newly Discovered Distant World: The Dwarf Planet Candidate 2017 OF201” can be viewed at https://youtu.be/phdoqL2ql

A look ahead at future guest speakers:

Date	Featured Speaker	Topic
Feb. 12, 2026	John Bochanski Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science and Physics Rider University	Dr. Bochanski has been connected to the Legacy Survey of Space and Time Discovery Alliance since his graduate studies more than 15 years ago. Rider University is part of the global effort using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to map the optical sky. The Rubin observatory (formerly the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST) will capture more information about our Universe than all other optical telescopes throughout history combined. The observatory released its first images this past June. Prof. Bochanski will discuss the project’s history and discoveries.   Thanks to Nick Mellis for suggesting this speaker.
Mar. 10, 2026	Robert Vanderbei Emeritus Professor in the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering Princeton University   AAAP Assistant Director rvdb@princeton.edu	Prof.  Bob Vanderbei will talk about stellar dynamics.
Apr. 14, 2026	Astronomer Berkeley SETI Research Center astrobrianlacki@gmail.com	September’s guest speaker Edwin Turner voiced his less-than-optimistic view of the prospect for discovering extraterrestrial life. Dr. Lacki, affiliated with Breakthrough Listen, a SETI initiative, recently submitted for publication a catalog of objects he and his team consider to be realistic and valuable observation targets. Dr. Lacki will talk about the catalog, “One of Everything: The Breakthrough Listen Exotica Catalog” and opine on the prospects of finding technosignatures and extraterrestrial intelligence. Thanks to Ira Polans for suggesting this speaker.
May 12, 2026	John Horgan Science Writer horganism3@gmail.com	Mr. Horgan will discuss his controversial 1996 book The End of Science, in which he argues that pure science, defined as “the primordial human quest to understand the universe and our place in it,” may be coming to an end. Horgan claims that science will not achieve insights into nature as profound as evolution by natural selection, the double helix, the Big Bang, relativity theory or quantum mechanics. In the future, he suggests, scientists will refine, extend and apply this pre-existing knowledge but will not achieve any more great “revolutions or revelations.” Shades of Auguste Comte, perhaps?   We expect to have copies of his book(s) for sale for the author to sign at the conclusion of his presentation.   Thanks to Rex Parker for engaging this speaker.
Jun 9, 2026	Jacob Hamer Assistant Curator NJ State Museum Planetarium Jacob.Hamer@sos.nj.gov	As usual, the June meeting will take place in the planetarium at the NJ State Museum in Trenton. There will be no streaming of this live-only sky show and PowerPoint presentation. Topic to be announced.
Sep. 8, 2026	Michael DiMario Chair of AAAP’s Astro-imaging SIG K2mjd@outlook.com	Dr. DiMario will present a primer on astro-imaging.
Oct. 13, 2026	Becka Phillipson Assistant Professor in Physics Villanova University	Prof. Phillipson, originally scheduled to be October 2025’s guest speaker, is an unconfirmed prospect to try again in 2026.

As always, members’ comments and suggestions are gratefully accepted and much appreciated. Thanks to Ira Polans and Dave Skitt for setting up the online links and connecting the meeting to the world outside Peyton Hall.

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victor.davis@verizon.net
program@princetonastronomers.org
(908) 581-1780 cell