Pulsar

Mike Horvath, the Director of Exhibits at the Museum of Science, details the process of imagining and creating an exhibit and how it can lead to wearing a wookiee costume on the mound at Fenway Park.

We chat about all of the options that you have for keeping, donating, or recycling eclipse glasses after April's total solar eclipse.

With the Great American Eclipse of 2024 in the rear view mirror, we look ahead to the next three years of solar and lunar eclipses visible from Boston and around the globe.

Dr. Greg Skomal, a shark expert with the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, discusses the incredible data that shark tags can give us as well as the process of finding and tagging great white sharks off of Cape Cod.

Our triceratops fossil, Cliff, did not live in New England. So what kind of dinosaurs did? We ask two local experts, Mark Agostini and Dr. Mark McMenamin, to tell us what fossils have been recovered from our own backyard.

With a total solar eclipse coming up on April 8th, 2024, we ask planetarium educator Talia what it feels like to actually witness the moon totally blocking the sun.

We celebrate the 30th anniversary of a daring Space Shuttle mission that fixed the Hubble Space Telescope by chatting about the experience with astronaut Jeff Hoffman.

Dr. Supriya Chakrabarti, the Director of UMass Lowell's Center for Space Science and Technology, explains some of the exciting space research and engineering that is happening right here in our backyard.

We ask marine mammal odontologist Dr. Martin Nweeia about one of the most amazing teeth anywhere in the animal kingdom and get the full story of the narwhal and its ten-foot tusk.

One of the more hopeful results of human spaceflight has been the Overview Effect, when astronauts feel the awe in looking down at our home planet while orbiting above. NASA Astronaut Bob Hines details his experience earthgazing from the International Space Station in 2022.

Maybe the most frequent questions we have gotten this century at the museum is what people can do personally to mitigate the effects of climate change. Frank Lowenstein from Rare's Climate Culture Boston gives a short list of big-impact actions.

There are an astonishing number of ant species living on our planet. One of the world's foremost experts on ants, Dr. Susanne Foitzik, explains how their society is different from ours in many ways.

There are so many amazing writers of science fiction. When they were young, did they dream of bring famous authors, or amazing scientists? Author Katie Slivensky shares her journey through the worlds of science and fiction.

Last month, MIT's Kishalay De published the first ever observations of a star destroying a planet. Hear about the detective work it took to realize what some of the world's largest telescopes were seeing as this cataclysmic event unfolded.

The word 'dinosaur' refers to a specific group of animals. Many animals get included under the dinosaur umbrella when they are actually from different groups. Becca from our programs team helps us set the fossil record straight.

Talia from our planetarium team talks about calculating the most efficient trajectories for spacecraft in order to get to interesting places from Mercury to Pluto and beyond.

With 62 new moons announced last week, Talia from our Charles Hayden Planetarium tells us how Saturn is once again the grand champion of the solar system in terms of natural satellites.

Volcanoes are incredibly powerful, but what causes one to form? Becca from our programs team talks about the origins of these explosive entities.

With so many stories in the news about the new capabilities of artificial intelligence, Emily from the museum's programs team explains what that term means and how AI works.

Dr. Michael Meyer has been the lead scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program for over 25 years. He tells us what the possibility of life on the red planet would mean for science and our understanding of the universe.

We ask Dr. Ben Weiss, an MIT expert on meteorites, how to spot the difference between rocks that formed on Earth and ones that fell from space.

North Atlantic Right Whales are critically endangered. We chat with Tim Cole and Lieutenant Christopher Licitra from NOAA Fisheries about efforts to identify, track, and conserve this fragile population.

In part two of our conversation with evolutionary biologist Dr. Nancy Simmons, we discuss the astonishing diversity of bats and how they came to dominate Earth's night skies.

Bats are the only mammals in Earth's history to achieve powered flight. We ask evolutionary biologist Dr. Nancy Simmons how bats gained this ability and why.

Kim Steadman, an engineer who operates the Perseverance Mars rover, details the how, when, what, and why behind our incredible discoveries on Mars.

Joe Bagley has been Boston's City Archeologist for over a decade. He shares some of the historic science that his department uncovers all around Beantown.

The metal gold has been highly valued by humans throughout our history, but what makes it so unique? Museum educator Colin gives us insight into its amazing properties, from its cosmic origins to its use in some of the most advanced technology humans have ever created.

For the exciting conclusion of our series on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft, we ask meteorologist Nikki Hathaway how flights through tropical storms can give us insight into their origins, mechanics, and perhaps most importantly, their trajectories.

We continue our series on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft with aerospace engineer Nick Underwood, who flies on missions through hurricanes and collects data to study their behavior and predict their movement.

NOAA aircraft scout out hurricanes that may threaten the United States by flying aircraft over and even right through them. We ask Lieutenant Commander Kevin Doremus what it's like to pilot an airplane through the eyewall of a massive storm.

For our hundredth episode, we're joined by the Museum of Science's president, Tim Ritchie, to answer one of the most common questions we are asked: what exciting things are coming up in the museum's future?

Sometimes the most exciting thing to talk about is what scientists don't know...yet. Georgia from our programs team tells us about the mystery of fast radio bursts, and how scientists are getting closer to explaining their origin.

We can learn a lot about animals that lived millions of years ago from studying their fossils. Morgan from our education team explains how we can analyze fossil teeth to tell us amazing things about ancient diets.

We chat with astronomy graduate student Daisuke Taniguchi about his clever method of looking back in time at the peculiar behavior of the star Betelgeuse, which will explode and disappear from our skies (relatively) soon.

We have over one hundred species of animals living at the museum. Visitors often ask our educators: are you assigned an animal for a live show, or do you get to pick your partner? Lauren from our programs team tells us more about the process of selecting and getting to know our live animal co-stars.

 We ask NASA's Jay Hollenbeck about the Space Launch System, a towering new rocket that will soon launch humans on a path back to the moon while claiming the title of most powerful rocket ever built.

Are snakes all tail? Or do they not even have tails? We ask museum educator and snake superfan Becca about snake anatomy as well as some of our most frequently received snake questions, such as: Why is that snake sticking its tongue out? And: Is that snake venomous?

We talk with geologist and climate scientist Dr. Patrick Nunn, who has studied the history of sea level rise and its effect on human civilizations.

We talk with astronomer Dr. Joshua Blackman about the fate of the Earth at the very end of our solar system, when the sun will render our planet quite uninhabitable.

With over 100 species of animals living here at the museum, visitors are always asking how they got here. We chat with Stacy, the Curator of our Live Animal Care Center, to get the whole story.

Carnivorous plants exist all around the world. People sometimes ask us, why do they need to eat bugs? And...what happens if I stick my finger in one?

Allergies to food are becoming more common and more severe in modern times. We talk with members of the Food Allergy Science Initiative to discuss why that is, as well as the scientific work being done right now that may one day lead to a cure for food allergies.

Marcus from our education team gives us the scoop on all of the speed records in the animal kingdom - land, sea, air, and more.

If a black hole came wandering through the solar system, would we notice? We're joined by the Bad Astronomer, Dr. Phil Plait, to chat about the possibility of Earth meeting its end via gravitational catastrophe.

We get tons of questions about plants - what's the biggest one? The largest flower? Why do leaves change color in the autumn? We go to Sue from our education team to dig up the answers.

We ask Dr. Sidney D'Mello, a cognitive and computer scientist, about his AI-assisted research on the connection between our emotions and how we learn.

Taking care of our 65 million-year-old Triceratops fossil is a delicate task. We ask Katie from our Collections department how, and how often, it gets cleaned.

We connect live with pandemic expert Dr. Ashish Jha and pose our most asked coronavirus question: when will the pandemic be over?

We feature an 'interview' with our virtual exhibit, Covid Conversations with Dr. Ashish Jha, to discover the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

The indoor sparks we create in our Theater of Electricity are purple, and visitors often ask what causes the color. We explore the reasons behind different shades of lightning.

Award-winning science fiction author Jack McDevitt discusses how we can imagine a universe where human space travel is not limited to the speed of light, and our civilization can explore the galaxy and beyond.