Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 27, 2019 – Dr. Ellen Stofan, Director of the National Air and Space Museum

Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)

In April 2018, Dr. Ellen Stofan became the first woman appointed as the John and Adrienne Mars Director of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 27, 2019 – Dr. Ellen Stofan, Director of the National Air and Space Museum”

Astronomy Cast Ep. 519: Transients: What They Are and Why They Matter

Astronomers have found that sometimes the Universe changes. Things move, things explode, things get brighter or dimmer. In fact, knowing this has helped astronomers discover some very important aspects of the Universe. Today we begin a two part series on Transients and their role in astronomy.
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Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 20, 2019 – Dr. Emily Holt talks Archaeology and Ancient Astronomy

Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)

Dr. Emily Holt is an Environmental Archaeologist and Anthropologist who is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Miami University of Ohio. Emily’s research focuses on human-environment dynamics in the Nuragic Culture of Bronze Age Sardinia. She directs the Pran’e Siddi Landscape Project (PSLP), an archaeological survey in south-central Sardinia, which is examining the long-term changes in settlement patterns, water use, and the socio-cultural interpretation of natural resources.

Emily is also the president of the non-profit organization Public Scholar Outreach whose mission is to support, produce, promote, and disseminate high-quality public scholarship, especially public scholarship that is peer-reviewed and public scholarship with relevance to contemporary issues. PSO’s primary initiative is to establish Dirt & Words: an online, open access channel of peer-reviewed public scholarship about the human past.

Today, Emily and Fraser will be discussing how ancient cultures understood astronomy, a topic she recently discussed with Paul Sutter on his Space Radio broadcast.

You can follow Emily on Twitter: @Emily_M_Holt

To learn more about her ongoing research, be sure to visit her website ERRANT: letters from an itinerant archaeologist here: https://errant.live/

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If you’d like to join Dr. Paul Sutter and Dr. Pamela Gay on their Cosmic Stories in the SouthWest Tour in August 2019, you can find the information at astrotours.co/southwest.

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The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest.

Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 13, 2019 – Luciano Iess of the Cassini Radio Science Team

Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)

Luciano Iess, professor of Aerospace Engineering at Sapienza University of Rome, is a member of the Cassini radio science team that recently determined, after analyzing gravity science data collected during the final orbits of Cassini around Saturn, that its iconic rings are a relatively young feature of the planet. Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 13, 2019 – Luciano Iess of the Cassini Radio Science Team”

Astronomy Cast Ep. 517: Fritz Zwicky and the Zwicky Transient Facility

One of the most influential astronomers in the 20th Century was Fritz Zwicky. He had his hand in the discovery of dark matter, gravitational lensing, supernovae and neutron stars. And he also worked on a few more controversial ideas like, uh, tired light. Let’s learn more about Zwicky.

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Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 6, 2019: Dr. Natalie Hinkel and “The Hypatia Catalog”

Hosts:
Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain)
Dr. Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter)
Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier )
Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org)

Dr. Natalie Hinkel is a Planetary Astrophysicist at the Southwest Research Institute and a co-investigator for the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS) research network at Arizona State University. Natalie studies elements in our solar neighborhood (i.e., within 150pc of the Sun,) to learn how element abundances impact the structure and mineralogy of planets.

Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: Feb 6, 2019: Dr. Natalie Hinkel and “The Hypatia Catalog””