April 26 



Film Festival: The Office of the Committeee for a Wider Audience and the Resident 

 Associate Program, in collaboration with the Washington, D.C., International Film 

 Festival, hosted a screening of the film Opera Do Malandro to celebrate the opening 

 of the Brazilian Showcase of Filmfest D.C. The event attracted nearly five hundred 

 guests from the local Brazilian, Hispanic, and diplomatic communities and helped the 

 Institution establish new ties with these audiences. 



April 27-28 



Special Event: The National Air and Space Museum's Paul E. Garber Preservation, 

 Restoration, and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland, hosted its Fifth Annual Open 

 House, attracting more than fifteen thousand visitors. 



April 30 



Exhibition: "IRAS: A Telescope in a Bottle" went on display in the National Air and 

 Space Museum's Stars Gallery. The exhibition includes a full-scale reconstruction of 

 the space-based Infrared Astronomical Satellite that has given astronomers a new 

 look at the distant universe, resulting in many important findings, which are 

 described in the exhibition. 



May 



Publication: A brochure on the Anacostia Museum was produced and distributed to 

 coincide with the opening of the museum at its new location. The brochure was funded 

 by a grant from the Women's Committee of the Smithsonian Associates. 



May 



Discovery: A team of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics scientists, using 

 the optical speckle interferometry technique with a telescope in Chile, observed a 

 bright companion to Supernova 1987A. The apparent brightness of the object and its 

 nearness to the supernova suggested it was linked to the stellar explosion. 



May 



Field Course: With the University of Panama, the Smithsonian Tropical Research 

 Institute sponsored a field course on bryophytes and lichens. The course was directed 

 by university Professor Noris Salazar and Alan Smith, an institute scientist. It 

 focused on the ecological importance of these plant groups and gave students the 

 opportunity to do independent research. 



May 



Visit: A delegation from Yerevan, capital of Soviet Armenia, visited the Harvard- 

 Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as part of the cultural, scientific, and political 

 activities associated with the sister-city agreement between Yerevan and Cambridge, 

 Massachusetts. 



