Discovery at Your Doorstep: Visit Brookhaven Lab for Summer Sundays!
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory is at the frontiers of discovery science and just north of the Long Island Expressway at Exit 68. Scientists at Brookhaven Lab collaborate with some of the world’s brightest minds, making the Laboratory an asset for innovation and inspiration. In the coming weeks, you—and your family and friends—are invited to visit Brookhaven Lab for Summer Sundays.
2017 is special for Brookhaven Lab. Seventy years ago, in 1947, the Laboratory became the nation’s newest home for discovery science. And a century ago at the same location on Long Island where the Lab operates today, the U.S. Army’s Camp Upton was founded as a training camp shortly after the United States entered World War I in 1917.
From soldiers, barracks, and Irving Berlin writing “God Bless America” to renowned scientists, seven Nobel prize-winning discoveries, and countless technological advances, much has changed here in the past century and the Laboratory still proudly serves our country today. Come see for yourself at Summer Sundays.
Visit a different facility each week. For specific details, including dates and times, visit Summer Sundays online. For the latest updates, like “Summer Sundays at Brookhaven National Lab” on Facebook. Visitors age 16 and older must bring a photo ID.
Brookhaven Lab Opens Its Doors for Summer Sundays
Summer Sundays open houses are a longstanding tradition at Brookhaven Lab. Visit a different world-class facility each week, speak with leading scientists, join in special activities for adults and children, and more–and it’s all free! Below, catch a glimpse of what you can discover at Summer Sundays.
Family Fun Day at the Science Learning Center
Enjoy a fabulous day of hands-on family fun at the Science Learning Center! Feel the thrill of scientific discovery at exhibits designed for school-aged children, and have fun with the fundamentals of science through hands-on activities about engineering, electricity, sound, and light. Also, in honor of Brookhaven Lab’s 70th anniversary and the 100th anniversary of Camp Upton–the U.S. Army camp founded where the Laboratory operates today–see a special display of Camp Upton artifacts and more.
Exploring the Ultra Small
Tour the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) at Summer Sundays, where Brookhaven Lab scientists study structures as tiny as a billionth of a meter for big advances in energy, national security, and more. At the CFN, discover the weird and wonderful things that happen at the ultra-small nanoscale with hands-on activities and see where scientists are working to understand and improve materials for energy and technology.
Brilliant Light, Dazzling Discoveries
Visit the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) during Summer Sundays at Brookhaven Lab to explore the brightest light source of its kind on the planet. Meet scientists who explore the inner structure of batteries, proteins, and space dust at the atomic scale in ways not possible before, thanks to the ultra-bright light created at NSLS-II. Sunglasses not required.
Atom-Smashing Fun
Explore the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Summer Sundays, where particles smash together at near-light-speed to reveal secrets of our universe. Visit the nation’s only particle collider, which is nearly two-and-a-half miles around, to see how physicists study what the universe may have looked like in the first few moments after its birth. This facility tour is appropriate for ages 10 and over.
World-Class Science Powering Discovery, Right Here on Long Island
Scientists from across the United States and around the world travel to Brookhaven Lab for research at unique facilities like the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, National Synchrotron Light Source II, and Center for Functional Nanomaterials–all U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities. These large “user facilities” house tools that researchers in academia and industry need, but are too large and too complex for them to build and operate alone. Other research facilities at Brookhaven are not as big, yet they too are vital in powering discovery.
More than 26,000 staff who have worked at Brookhaven Lab–plus collaborators and students–have pursued exciting adventures exploring the unknown since the Lab’s founding in 1947. They identified particles that danced undetected for billions of years. They helped shape our understanding of the atom and the universe, while advancing medical imaging techniques and research in microbiology, Earth’s ecosystems, energy storage, and more. With important challenges and new capabilities–including “big data” and high-throughput computing–those explorations continue today.
The Laboratory is managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA), a partnership between the Research Foundation for the State University of New York–on behalf of Stony Brook University–and Battelle. BSA also engages six of the world’s premier research universities–Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, and Yale–in the governance and oversight of the Laboratory.
Learn more about Brookhaven Lab and its expanding history of explorations at the frontiers of discover in this Newsday special section. Can you, your family, and friends final the hidden pictures on pages 6 and 7? And see if you can answer the questions in the Discovery Science Quiz on the back page.