If youre curious about what lies in the worlds beyond ours, Tennessee State University has just the thing.

For the third year, TSUs astronomy department has released a wall calendar filled with amazing images and fascinating scientific facts about the galaxies, stars and planets out in space. Its free to anyone interested.

We thought it was a really good opportunity for public outreach and to share some of the exciting results our research team is doing at TSU, said Matthew Muterspaugh, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at TSU and an astrophysicist. We thought this would be a good forum to spread this information.

The calendar is put together by undergraduates who do the research, compile the information and create the colorful pages for each month. Along with information about what TSU is researching in space, the calendar also includes interesting factoids that will liven up any New Years Eve party: Who knew that on Jan 7, 1610, Galileo discovered there are moons orbiting Jupiter? Or that Albert Einstein was born March 14, 1879?

The calendar includes popular sky items and also ones that are related to the research were doing at TSU, Muterspaugh said. In particular, the calendar includes observations made with TSUs fully robotic telescopes that are located in Southern Arizona. They are operated from downtown Nashville.

Each year the calendar has gotten better and better, he said. This year is the best yet. They are all new images this year. We have not had to repeat any images in three years.

Last years calendar included images of a dwarf galaxy 10 million light-years away, the Bubble Nebula, created from stellar wind from a massive young central star, and the constellation Andromeda, 300 light-years away. Its mind-blowing.

In a state that needs hard-science graduates, TSU has become a rising star. In 2008, two TSU astronomers made a discovery that caused an international stir in the science world. Gregory Henry and Francis Frekel, as part of a national team, revealed that in a faraway solar system about as old as the Earths, two planets had collided and annihilated one another, leaving a dense cloud of warm dust. It raised new questions about whether there might have been life there before that happened. The findings were published.

TSU scientists also participated in the widely controversial debate over the definition of a planet that demoted Pluto from planet status to dwarf planet. Just last week, Muterspaugh participated in research at Lowell Observatory.

Astronomy is one of those fields that is as old as human thought, Muterspaugh said. Everybody has an innate desire to wonder whats out there. Are we alone? What is our role in the universe? The calendar is an opportunity for outreach to the sciences in general. We have such a strong research component in astronomy, we hope to encourage people.

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Gail Kerr: Seek new worlds with TSU astronomy calendar