Here in Pasadena the Spitzer conference has effortlessly expanded into the local and more distant universe, powered by great minds and distinguished talks (and what could be considered dangerous amounts of coffee if you aren't an astronomer). Yesterday afternoon's session focused on some of the key processes that can be studied "up close" in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Today the conference shifted gears to the stuff I'm really interested in - other galaxies, particularly ones that are making lots of stars.

Admittedly the U2 concert received more media coverage, but the "Reionization to Exoplanets: Spitzer's Growing Legacy" conference is also rocking Pasadena and will be until Wednesday. It has been six years since Spitzer launched and this conference will be showcasing the science it has cultivated.

I'm Luisa, an astronomer here at Spitzer. I study baby stars which will grow up to be like our Sun. But more about that in another posting... Among many other roles, I am also the director of a program called NITARP, the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program, and we just today finished selecting our new teachers for 2010! I am very excited about this!