The EPSS ELFIN and space weather booth displaying the ELFIN cubesat and space rocks! Left to right: Jasper Laca, Emmanuel Masongsong, Fekireselassie Beyene | Photo Credit: Michelle Reardon

As the sky darkened on Thursday, February 2nd, UCLA students flocked to the Westwood streets near Broxton to experience UCLA’s First Thursdays, a monthly block party in Westwood with music, fun activities, and time to socialize with fellow Bruins. This month’s theme of “Westwood Wonder” was a collaboration involving EPSS and other space science oriented UCLA groups, featuring cosmos themed activities that delighted and left attendees starry-eyed.

EPSS Graduate Students Tyler Powell and Jaahnavee Venkatraman running a booth on DIVINER, which uses infrared on the moon. This booth provided an infrared camera view of the crowd!

EPSS booths included Professor Dave Jewitt showing Mars and the moon through telescopes, samples of different meteorites, the AR sandbox, the ELFIN cubesat and plasma demonstrations, Professor Hao Cao discussing NASA Juno/Europa Clipper missions to Jupiter, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter DIVINER team with an infrared camera to explain how they detect surface features on the Moon.

Left: UCLA student peers through an EPSS-provided telescope. | Photo Credit: David Esquivel

Right: The EPSS Augmented Reality Sandbox spelling out "UCLA" in a topographic map. | Photo Credit: David Esquivel