Cultural Events Calendar

Lhakpa Sherpa is the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest and holds the world record for the most Everest summits by any woman. Beyond her extraordinary accomplishments as a climber, Lhakpa is also a survivor of domestic violence who now shares her story to inspire courage, healing, and resilience.

Through film and live conversation, Lhakpa will reflect on her journey from scaling the world’s highest peaks to navigating profound personal challenges and the strength required to survive both physical and emotional mountains.

Our Milky Way Galaxy is surrounded by dozens of smaller galaxies. By proximity, the Milky Way’s satellite galaxy population includes the faintest and lowest mass systems in the known Universe. These “ultra-faint” galaxies are several million times fainter than the Milky Way itself, providing a rare window into how the first galaxies formed, and they may help us test ideas about dark matter—the invisible material thought to make up most of the matter in the universe. In this talk, I’ll trace the discovery of ultra‑faint galaxies around the Milky Way over the past decade, and preview new surveys that may reveal even fainter companions in the next few years. Finally, I’ll show how these surprising objects are reshaping a basic question: what, exactly, counts as a galaxy?

After a tremendous premier in 2025, Frontiers of Knowledge is back in 2026 with a new focus, “Consciousness in the Living World”. In 2025 we followed an arc in time, which moved from the creation of the universe to current understandings of human consciousness. In 2026, our leading edge speaker series will move from the development of human consciousness in concert with the natural world — to possibilities of the newest intelligence, AI, which is now ours to evolve. How might we think about life in this expanded universe? What does it mean to be human in the cosmos at this time? More information on speakers and the program schedule at frontiersofknowledge.org

How does cartilage do so much for so long, and why does it eventually give way? In this lecture, I will show that the answer lies in a beautiful piece of physics: cartilage is a network of microscopic fibers living right on the edge of a phase transition between soft and stiff. Small changes — a little less collagen, a little less swelling pressure — can produce enormous changes in how the tissue responds to load. The same principle that protects your joints for eighty years can, once crossed, lead to sudden failure. And the same principle, we are beginning to learn, can guide us in designing a new generation of resilient, lifelike materials.

This gathering will feature special guest Al Letson, Peabody Award-winning host of Reveal, the nationally acclaimed investigative radio show and podcast from The Center for Investigative Reporting, in conversation with Aspen Journalism Editor and Executive Director Curtis Wackerle.

Join us! Friday, Sept. 11 at 5:30 p.m.

The Hotel Jerome Grand Ballroom
(330 Main Street, Aspen, CO 81611)

RSVP Kindly Required
Cost: Free

Co-sponsored by Aspen Public Radio, PRX and the Hotel Jerome, this discussion will explore the growing importance of listener- and reader-supported journalism, the evolving landscape of multimedia storytelling, and the role independent news organizations play in informing and strengthening communities and democracy.