Weekly Space Hangout

Join us this week for our first News Roundup of the New Year, which is also the final episode of the Weekly Space Hangout! Thank you to everyone who made this show possible over the years and who helped bring science to the community! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Historically, scientists using spectrographic analysis to study exoplanet atmospheres have considered oxygen and methane as two key biosignatures when identifying "life-friendly" planets. But could nitrous oxide (N2O) — aka "Laughing Gas" — also be a reliable biosignature? A recent paper published in the October, 2022, Astrophysical Journal explains why N2O can — and should — be included as a biosignature gas. Tonight we are pleased to welcome the paper's lead author, Dr. Eddie Schwieterman, astrobiologist at UC Riverside, to discuss why N2O is an indicator of life. Dr. Eddie Schwieterman is an Assistant Professor of Astrobiology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Riverside. He earned his undergraduate degrees in physics and astrophysics from the Florida Institute of Technology and his PhD in astronomy and astrobiology from the University of Washington in Seattle. Dr. Schwieterman studies the climate, atmospheric chemistry, geochemical evolution, and spectral appearance of terrestrial (rocky) planets. His research specifically focuses on the habitability and potential biosignatures of exoplanets. To learn more about Eddie's research visit his website (www.eddieschwieterman.com) and follow him on Twitter: @nogreenstars. You can also read more about nitrous oxide as biosignature in the following SciNews article: Nitrous Oxide Could Help Detect Extraterrestrial Life on Exo-Earths. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Viewers who watched/listened to our November 16, 2022, episode may remember that Dr. Leah Jenks told us about high-energy neutrino emissions from NGC 1068 (Messier 77) that were detected by IceCube. This week we are pleased to welcome Dr. Francis Halzen, Principal Investigator for IceCube, who will discuss the significance of these detections in understanding how active galaxies "work," and potentially ushering in the age of Neutrino Astronomy. With funding from the National Science Foundation the IceCube project at the South Pole melted eighty-six holes over 1.5 miles deep in the Antarctic icecap to construct an enormous astronomical observatory. The experiment discovered a flux of neutrinos reaching us from the cosmos, with energies more than a million times those of neutrinos produced at accelerator laboratories. These cosmic neutrinos are astronomical messengers coming from some of the most violent processes in the universe and from the biggest explosions since the Big Bang. We will discuss the IceCube telescope and highlight the recent discoveries that some high-energy neutrinos — and cosmic rays — originate from sources powered by rotating supermassive black holes. Francis Halzen is a Vilas and Gregory Breit Distinguished Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Born in Belgium, Halzen received his Master's and PhD degrees from the KUL Leuven, Belgium, and has been on the physics faculty at UW–Madison since 1972; in 2021, Halzen was named a Vilas Research Professor, one of the university's most prestigious honors. He has been a fellow of the American Physical Society since 1994, and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2014 "Smithsonian" American Ingenuity Award, the 2015 Balzan Prize, a 2018 Bruno Pontecorvo Prize, the 2019 IUPAP Yodh Prize, the 2021 Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the 2021 Homi Bhabha Award, and honorary doctorates at several universities. Halzen is the Principal Investigator of IceCube, a cubic-kilometer neutrino telescope buried in the Antarctic ice at the South Pole. IceCube's first observations of high-energy cosmic neutrinos garnered the 2013 "Physics World" Breakthrough of the Year Award. In September 2017, IceCube detected a high-energy neutrino from the direction of a blazar called TXS 0506+056. This was the first-ever evidence of a source of high-energy cosmic rays, whose origins have been notoriously difficult to pinpoint since they were discovered over one hundred years ago. Also a skilled science communicator, Halzen travels widely, giving about 20 or more invited talks per year at conferences, workshops, and colloquia. He also gives regular public talks to local and national groups and interviews for television and radio. Halzen is the co-author of "Quarks and Leptons", a classic textbook on modern particle physics that continues to be used extensively throughout college campuses today. He has a large number of publications to his credit and has written or edited several other books. His essay “Antarctic Dreams,” about the early days of AMANDA, IceCube's precursor, was featured in "The Best American Science Writing 2000". To stay up-to-date with IceCube, visit the IceCube website and follow them on Twitter (@uw_icecube), Instagram (@icecube_neutrino), and Facebook (@icecubeneutrino). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

During our November 16th show, Carolyn Collins Petersen introduced us to the hourglass/butterfly of L1527, an image captured by JWST using its onboard NIRCam. (You can read the original story here. This week we are joined by Dr. Karl Stapelfeldt, Chief Scientist for NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program at JPL who will help us understand the science behind this amazing structure. Karl earned a B.S.E. in Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Physics at Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics at Caltech. His career at NASA includes positions at both the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and most recently at the Goddard Space Flight Center, where he has served as the Chief of Goddard's Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory since 2011. Karl's NASA science contributions include project science roles for the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes and science observations using the Herschel Space Observatory. He served as chair of the Exoplanet-Coronagraph Probe-Scale Science and Technology Definition Team, and as a member of the Astrophysics Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

It's time for another News Roundup ! Buckle up for another hour of news!! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who lived in the second century BCE, is considered to be the greatest astronomical observer of his time. Among his achievements are the development of trigonometry, the ability to predict solar eclipses, discovering and measuring the precession of the equinoxes, and, in approximately 135 BCE, the compilation of the first comprehensive star catalogue in the western world. Since that time, scientists have spent centuries searching for Hipparchus' Star Catalogue, but it disappeared and has never been found. Or has it? In 2017, researchers used multispectral imaging and computer algorithms to examine an ancient manuscript that had been discovered in a Greek Orthodox monastery in Egypt in 2012. The resulting images not only uncovered astronomy-related writings (e.g., Eratosthenes' star-origin myths and the third-century poem Phaenomena about the constellations,) but also hidden in the manuscript were star coordinates. Could this manuscript include part of Hipparchus' star catalogue? Tonight we are airing Fraser's prerecorded interview with Dr. Victor Gysembergh, research professor at the French National Scientific Research Centre. Victor is one of the two experts who examined the manuscript images - tune in to hear all about his conclusions. Victor Gysembergh is a CNRS research professor at the Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne Université). He is currently working on an edition of the fragments of Eudoxus of Cnidus, as well as on editions of Claudius Ptolemy's treatise On the Analemma and his recently discovered treatise on the Meteoroscope. You can read all about this exciting discovery here: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/medieval-parchment-worlds-oldest-star-map-2195744 You can also read the resulting paper about this find here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1177/00218286221128289 You can learn more about Hipparchus here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus Image credit: Heritage Daily/Peter Mallik - (Adapted) **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Despite the romance associated with Venus for millennia thanks to its having been named after the Roman god of love, Venus has proven to anything BUT romantic - LITERALLY! Combining the toxic and corrosive composition of its atmosphere with the crushing pressure exerted on anything that attempts to venture too far into it, Venus is the last place most of us would choose for a date. These conditions proved to be disastsrous for missions that sent traditional craft to the planet. To date, the only "craft" to have survived for more than a few hours are the 1985 Soviet Vega 1 and Vega 2 balloon missions where each survived just over 46 hours before their batteries ran out. It would seem that baloons are the way to go! This week we are joined by Dr. Jacob Izraelevitz, Principal Investigator of the JPL project that is developing robotic balloons — currently called aerobots — that will eventually (hopefully) lead to successful exploration of Venus. In July, 2022, a one-third scale prototype aerobot successfully completed two test flights and achieved controlled flight at more than 4000 feet. These flights were coordinated by Near Space Corporation, a commercial provider of high altitude/near space platforms and flight services. You can read all about this exciting project in the article written by WSH and Universe Today alumnus Ian O'Neill. Dr. Jacob Izraelevitz is a Robotics Technologist and Group Lead at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Extreme Environment Robotics Group, and is the Principal Investigator of JPL's Variable-Altitude Venus Aerobots development task. His career at JPL has primarily sat at the interface of controls and fluid mechanics, covering both powered and buoyant aerial platforms for Venus and Mars. Jacob also acts in a systems engineering role for instrument accommodation on the Europa Lander. Jacob received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the aerodynamics of flapping wings, and B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Olin College of Engineering. To learn more about Jacob and stay up to date with his research, visit his JPL website or find him on LinkedIn. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

Since its final commissioning and being placed in service, JWST has been delivering on its promise to provide unprecedented insight into the most distant — and oldest — regions of our Universe. Whether it's providing a new view of our nearby neighbor Jupiter, or sussing out never-before-seen details of the iconic Eagle Nebula and its Pillars of Creation, let's face it - the imagery so far has been nothing less than stunning! But more importantly, the data being collected by JWST's onboard instrumentation are allowing scientists the ability to peer back in time to study the oldest cosmic structures while they are still in their infancy, potentially unlocking never-before understood processes that have led to the Universe as we know it today. This week we are joined by Dr. Andrey Vayner, a member of a multinational team led by Dominika Wylezalek of Heidelberg University (Germany) that has been studying SDSS J165202.64+172852.3, an “extremely red” QUASAR that dates back to the earliest days of the Universe, some 11.5 billion years ago. Using data collected by NIRSpec, JWST's near infrared spectrograph (https://webb.nasa.gov/content/observatory/instruments/nirspec.html), the team has been able to confirm the presence of not just one, but three, companion galaxies of the QUASAR that are actively in the process of merging. Andrey is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University Physics and Astronomy Department. He obtained his Ph.D. from UC San Diego in 2019. He studies how galaxies and supermassive black holes evolve over cosmic time using advanced ground and space-based telescopes. His current focus is on early-release science observations with JWST, studying the most powerful active galactic nuclei that are heavily obscured by dust. Want to learn more about this exciting research? Visit: https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/10/20/webb-quasar-galaxies/  https://esawebb.org/news/weic2217/ Want to take a deeper dive? You can find the team's paper on Arxiv. To follow Andrey and learn more about his research, visit: https://astrovayner.com/ and you can also follow him on Twitter: @astrovayner **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

This week we are airing our prerecorded interview with Andy Saunders, the author and creative force behind the new book "Apollo Remastered." Andy used his talent and expertise to digitally remaster and restore the original flight film from America's first missions to the Moon. Universe Today's own Nancy Atkinson (who is also a WSH alumna,) interviewed Andy this past month, and as a special treat, Nancy is joining us tonight as well. Andy Saunders is a British author, science writer, and one of the world's foremost experts of NASA digital restoration. His photographic work has been exhibited internationally at some of the most renowned venues, and regularly makes headlines in the world press - including BBC News, CBS News, Daily Telegraph, New York Times, USA Today, Smithsonian Magazine and Fox News, among others. His remastered images have also been utilised by NASA and reside in their own archives. To learn more about Apollo Remastered, including where you can get your own copy of this gorgeous book and/or reprints of images in the book, visit https://www.apolloremastered.com/. To learn more about Andy, visit https://www.apolloremastered.com/bio. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

As we discover new exoplanets on an almost daily basis - particularly now that JWST is online - scientists are ramping up their research into identifying those planets that may exhibit traces of life (as we know it.) Scientists use spectrographs to examine the composition of these exoplanet atmospheres looking markers called technosignatures - trace elements that may be indicative of life. What constitutes a technosignature? Does the presence of one or more technosignatures mean that an exoplanet is a strong candidate for hosting life? Can atmospheric markers not included in our current list of technosignatures still be indicative of life, just not as we know it? This week, we welcome Dr. Sofia Sheikh from the SETI Institute to discuss how the ATA is playing an instrumental role in this research. Dr. Sofia Z. Sheikh is a radio astronomer and astrobiologist working at the SETI Institute. She obtained her undergraduate degrees in physics and astronomy at UC Berkeley, and has recently returned to the Bay Area with an NSF-ASCEND Postdoctoral Fellowship after getting her PhD in Astronomy and Astrobiology at Penn State. Currently, she is performing SETI searches and studying pulsars and fast radio bursts with the Allen Telescope Array, a 42-dish radio array located in Hat Creek, California. You can learn more about the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) by visiting their website. *************************************** Cover image/file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en. File name: Technosignatures.jpg; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Technosignatures.jpg Study name: "Searching for technosignatures in exoplanetary systems with current and future missions" Study/source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576522002594 Authors of the study: Jacob Haqq-Misraa, Edward W. Schwieterman, Hector Socas-Navarro, Ravi Kopparapu, Daniel Angerhausen, Thomas G. Beatty, Svetlana Berdyugina, Ryan Felton, Siddhant Sharmaa, Gabriel G. De la Torre, Dániel Apai, TechnoClimes 2020 workshop participants **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

Pulsars have baffled scientists for decades, including how they work and what form matter takes within a pulsar. Using data collected by the Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) Mission between July 2017 and December 2018, scientists have not only been able to make the most precise size measurements of Pulsar J0030+0451 (located 1,100 light-years away in the constellation Pisces), but they have also mapped hotspots located on its surface. This week we are joined by Dr. Zaven Arzoumanian and Dr. Keith Gendreau, members of the Goddard Team that mapped J0030 and co-authors of "Focus on NICER Constraints on the Dense Matter Equation of State" published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters in December, 2019. Zaven is the Deputy Principal Investigator and Science Lead for NICER. Keith is Principal Investigator NICER. Be sure to follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/keithgendreau You can read more about this achievement here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2019/nasa-s-nicer-delivers-best-ever-pulsar-measurements-1st-surface-map Want to learn more about the NICER mission? Visit their webpage: https://www.nasa.gov/nicer  **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

It's our first News Roundup of the season! News, news, and more news! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

Nothing transcends human differences here on our tiny planet than sharing the wonders of the night sky. For 50 years, Mike Simmons has been sharing and spreading astronomy with the world, both locally and internationally. Tonight, Mike joins us to share his newest venture, Astronomy for Equity, as he continues his calling to share astronomy with local communitites around the world. Astronomy for Equity brings together existing resources, expertise, networks, and communities to create opportunities for STEM growth in marginalized, isolated, and underserved areas. Mike Simmons is a long-time friend of the WSH. He is probably best known by members of our community for having founded (and lead) Astronomers Without Borders for over 14 years. In 2020, Mike retired from AWB and joined Blue Marble Space Institute of Science as an Affiliate Research Scientist - which allowed him to found Astronomy for Equity. Mike is also on the Board of Directors of the International Dark-Sky Association. You can learn more about Astronomy for Equity by visiting their webpage. Be sure to also check out their impressive list of advisors which includes such familiar names as Universe Today's Nancy Atkinson, "Bad Astronomer" Phil Plait, and former WSH guest Astronaut Nicole Stott! With these folks on the team, Astronomy for Equity can't help but succeed! If you are interested in helping Astronomy for Equity, they are currently running a crowdfund campaign to help students in Libya learn Astronomy. If you are so inclined and would like to contribute (no amount is too small!) please go here: https://astro4equity.org/please-help-students-in-libya-learn-astronomy/ To stay up to date with Mike and his various projects, you can follow him on Facebook as well as Twitter. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

On August 5, 2022, a plucky little rover named Curiosity celebrated its 10th Anniversary on the surface of Mars. Since being lowered on Mars that summer day it has continued to exceed all mission expectations. For ten years, Curiosity has called Gale Crater and the foothills of Mount Sharp "home," all while wandering around the name of science and traveling nearly 18 miles (29 kilometers) and ascending 2,050 feet (625 meters). What have we been able to learn about Mars during this decade? And what lies ahead for the "Little Rover that Could?" Join us tonight as Dr. Ashwin Vasavada brings piques our "Curiosity" and answers these questions. Dr. Ashwin Vasavada is a planetary scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. Currently he is the Project Scientist for NASA's Curiosity rover that began development in 2003 and just completed its tenth year on the surface of Mars. He now leads the international team of scientists as they explore Gale Crater. He also has participated in the operation and analysis of data from several other NASA spacecraft missions, including the Galileo mission to Jupiter, the Cassini mission to Saturn, and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. He holds a B.S. in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA and a Ph.D. in Planetary Science from Caltech. You can stay up to date with Curiosity by visiting the project's web site and by following it on both Twitter and Instagram. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

This week we are super excited to welcome Dr. Moiya McTier to the Weekly Space Hangout - this time as our special guest! In 2019, Moiya joined the Weekly Space Hangout as one of our first Early Career Journalists, and in April, 2021, she extended our WSH tradition of producing PhDs. On August 16th, Moiya's "autobiographical" book, The Milky Way, was published, and this week she is here to tell us all about it. Moiya grew up in the middle of the woods of rural Pennsylvania without running water. From there, she went to Harvard University where she became the first person in the school's long history to study both astrophysics and folklore & mythology. On April 7, 2021, Moiya earned her PhD in astronomy at Columbia University in New York City, after her successful thesis defense. Moiya researched how the Milky Way's structure influences exoplanet populations. Outside of research, Moiya has written a science fiction novel, designed an exhibit for the New York Hall of Science, and given more than 100 talks and performances about science. You can learn more about Moiya on her website Moiya McTier. Be sure to follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

The first suspected exoplanet was identified back in 1988, and was then confirmed in 1992. Since then, the rate at which detection/confirmations have been made has been increasing. And JWST has already directly imaged its first exoplanet! What data are we able to gather from here on Earth? What are we able to learn about these planets from the data collected? How does exoplanet geology compare with our own geology here on Earth? Let's find out as we welcome planetary geologist Dr. Paul Byrne, to the WSH. Paul Byrne received his B.A. in geology, and Ph.D. in planetary geology, from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He was a MESSENGER postdoctoral fellow at the Earth and Planets Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, and an LPI postdoctoral fellow at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas. He is an Associate Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis; before coming to WashU, he was an assistant and then associate professor at North Carolina State University. Paul's research focuses on comparative planetary geology—comparing and contrasting the surfaces and interiors of planetary bodies, including Earth, to understand geological phenomena at the systems level. Byrne's research projects span the solar system from Mercury to Pluto and, increasingly, to the study of extrasolar planets. He uses remotely sensed data, numerical and physical models, and fieldwork in analogue settings on Earth to understand why planets look the way they do.  Be sure to follow Paul on Twitter! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

NOTE: Due to an unexpected production issue, our audio cuts out at 11:44 for just over one minute, and again at 13:51 for just over 15 seconds. We apologize for this. Since JWST launched in December, 2022, we have been holding our collective breath as it made its way to its final home at the L2 Lagrange point. Throughout its approximate month-long journey, JWST systematically worked through a complicated series of deployment and commissioning procedures, including the all-critical focusing and alignment of the telescope's 18 primary mirror segments using 132 different actuator motors. On April 29, 2022, it was announced that focusing and alignment had completed successfully. Tonight, we are joined by Lee Feinberg, Optical Telescope Element (OTE) Manager for JWST, who will tell us what this exacting process truly entailed. Lee Feinberg is the NASA Optical Telescope Element (OTE) Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, a role he has been in since 2002. Earlier in his career, Lee was the Assistant Chief for Technology in the Instrument Systems and Technology Division at Goddard and prior to that Lee was part of the optical team that repaired the Hubble Space Telescope on SM1, STIS instrument manager on SM-2, and he co-led the concept study for Wide Field Camera-3. Lee was a member of the LUVOIR and Habex Science and Technology Definition Teams and focuses his current research on ultra-stable telescopes and segmented space telescopes. Lee is a Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Fellow and a Goddard Space Flight Center Senior Fellow. To learn more about Lee, visit his NASA webpage https://jwst.nasa.gov/content/meetTheTeam/people/feinberg.html as well as this featured Conversations With Goddard interview https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/james-webb-manager-lee-feinberg-is-committed-to-space-telescopes-and-music Lee explains the process of Webb's early alignment: https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=1087563742007119&_rdr Seeing the Light | Lee Feinberg | TEDxUniversityofRochester: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWbd4-C4NaY Interview on Your Space Journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEMWVo2HJnI Finally, be sure to follow Lee on Twitter: https://twitter.com/leefeinberg1 And of course, be sure to visit the JWST website to stay up to date with the latest news: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

This week we are honored to welcome former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver to the Weekly Space Hangout. Her new memoir, Escaping Gravity (Diversion Books, June 21, 2022), offers a "first-hand account of how a handful of revolutionaries managed to outmaneuver the system of political patronage and bureaucracy that threatened the space agency and the future of human spaceflight. From inside NASA, Garver drove changes to policies and programs that enabled competition that challenged the expensive and ineffective traditional systems at the exact time the capabilities and resources of the private sector began to mature." Lori Garver led the NASA transition team for President-elect Obama and served as Deputy Administrator of NASA from 2009 - 2013. Lori is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, an Executive in Residence at Bessemer Venture Partners, and a member of the Board of Directors for Hydrosat. Garver founded Earthrise Alliance, a philanthropic organization utilizing satellite data to address climate change, and co-founded the Brooke Owens Fellowship, an internship and mentorship program for collegiate women. Previous senior executive positions include former General Manager of the Air Line Pilots Association, Vice President of the Avascent Group, Associate Administrator for Policy at NASA, and Executive Director of the National Space Society. Garver is the recipient of the 2021 Public Service Award for AIAA, the 2021 Heinlein Award for the National Space Society, the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award for Women in Aerospace, and has been awarded three NASA Distinguished Service Medals. Lori holds a B.A. in Political Economy from Colorado College and an M.A. in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from George Washington University. Be sure to visit the Escaping Gravity website to learn more about the book, including how to order your own copy. You can also learn more about Lori by visiting her website as well as her NASA webpage. Follow Lori on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

As humanity dreams of exploring destinations both within our own solar system as well as those far beyond, the greatest challenge to be overcome is how to provide effective protection against the inevitable, prolonged exposure to lethal levels of radiation. We all know that Earth's strong magnetic field continually protects us. But can a sufficiently strong magnetic field be generated aboard a spacecraft? 2022 NIAC winner Dr. Elena D'Onghia joins us tonight to discuss a new concept that may just be the solution we need! Elena is an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison's Department of Astronomy, and the principal investigator for this innovative concept called CREW HaT which stands for Cosmic Radiation Extended Warding using the Halbach Torus. The project, which has been awarded funding from NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC), incorporates superconductive tape technology, a deployable design, and a Halbach Torus (shown in tonight's thumbnail). The Halbach Torus is a circular array of magnets that generates an asymmetric magnetic field with an enhanced magnetic field outside of a spacecraft that diverts cosmic radiation particles and a suppressed magnetic field within the astronaut's habitat. To learn more about CREW Hat visit their NIAC page here: https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2022/CREW_HaT/ You can also read more about it here: https://phys.org/news/2022-05-magnetic-astronauts-dangerous-space.html Dr. Elena D'Onghia is an Associate Professor in the Astronomy Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prior to joining UWM, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Elena's research combines unique analytic models and high-resolution numerical simulations to get new insights into the dynamical processes that form the stellar skeleton of our Galaxy. You can learn more about Elena on her UWM faculty page here: http://www.astro.wisc.edu/our-people/faculty/donghia-elena/. And be sure to check out the Mad Astro Dynamics Research Group at UWM here: https://www.madastrodynamics.com/  **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

It's another week of news, news, and even MORE news! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.  

Developing reliable, renewable, and safe power/energy storage systems is a key requirement for future space missions, both within our solar system and those venturing beyond it, as well as for establishing a permanent human presence on the moon and/or Mars. Are fuel cells one solution to this need? And what exactly constitutes a fuel cell? Find out tonight as we are joined by Ian Jakupca from NASA's Glenn Research Center. After graduating from the University of Dayton, Ian began developing specialized flow control components, instrumentation and electrochemical stacks for aerospace systems at the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio in 2000. His initial work supported the development team working on the next generation Space Shuttle Orbiter fuel cell power system before transitioning to oxygen and hydrogen generation through water electrolysis and regenerative fuel cell energy storage systems. This early component work supported efforts to monitor and operate regenerative fuel cell energy storage systems in vacuum environments. Over time his work expanded to system-level designs to meet the requirements of a range of vehicles. Ian's primary research interest is the efficiency of integrated electrochemical systems with a focus on low-power techniques to manage reactants, heat, power and instrumentation. He led multiple system design and demonstrations efforts for air-independent (H2/O2) primary and regenerative fuel cell systems. To date, he has innovation awards for software and hardware and is the lead author on over 20 external publications. As the Fuel Cell Technology Lead at NASA Glenn Research Center, he supervises and consults for multiple technology development projects involving ISRU electrolysis, primary fuel cells, and regenerative fuel cells for space and aerospace applications. To learn more about the research being done in fuel cell technology (and more!) view the following presentations: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/05/f34/fcto_bop_workshop_jacupka.pdf https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review19/ia011_jakupca_2019_o.pdf Also be sure to check out the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

On May 12th, 2022, the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released the first-ever direct image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of our galaxy. Tonight we are very pleased to welcome Dr. Lia Medeiros, a member of the EHT Collaboration, to the WSH. If you watched the NSF's streaming Q&A session following their press conference, you may recognize Lia as a member of the panel. Dr. Lia Medeiros is currently an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. In 2013, she completed her undergraduate education at the University of California-Berkeley in Physics and Astrophysics, and went on to earn her Masters and PhD (2019) in Physics from the University of California-Santa Barbara. After completing her classwork, Lia took advantage of the flexibility allowed by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and spent three years at the Steward Observatory at The University of Arizona and one year at the Black Hole Initiative at Harvard. Lia's PhD thesis was completed in collaboration with University of Arizona Professors Feryal Özel and Dimitrios Psaltis. Lia was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and spent most of her childhood living in several cities in Brazil and a few years in Cambridge, England. One of the highlights of her career has been having the opportunity to engage with the scientific community in Brazil. She has given multiple talks in Brazil to both academic and public audiences in both English and Portuguese. When not simulating supermassive black holes, Lia loves horseback riding, practicing aerial silks, salsa dancing, and almost any type of art, especially ceramics and drawing. To learn more about Lia, visit her website — you will absolutely be mesmerized by the movie on her landing page! You can stay up to date with Lia and her research by following her on Twitter and Facebook. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

NOTE: We apologize for the audio issues in this week's podcast. We are working to diagnose and resolve the issues, and we appreciate your patience as we do so. Gravitational lensing has been used to discover far-distant galaxies that are obstructed from view thanks to the inconvenient positioning of astronomical interlopers. Recently, researchers have begun asking if this same lensing technique could be adapted to use the gravity of OUR SUN to suss out never-before seen details of the more than 5000 exoplanets discovered to date. It is thought that by aligning the sun in a straight line between a space-based telescope and an exoplanet, exoplanet images could be obtained. But this would require a lot of fuel and time. Tonight's guest is Alexander Madurowicz, PhD candidate at Stanford University. Alex has developed an algorithm that reconstructs an exoplanet's surface using a single, annular image acquired by looking directly at the sun. Light from this ring is then undistorted by reversing its having been bent by the gravitational lens (i.e., our Sun,) which yields the ring of light being turned back into a whole, round planet. This method of imaging exoplanets was presented in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal on May 2, 2022. Alex Madurowicz is a Physics PhD candidate at Stanford University. His research interests are in astronomical instrumentation, specifically for the direct imaging of extrasolar planets. He works with his advisor Bruce Macintosh and other collaborators from universities around the world on the Gemini Planet Imager project. The Gemini Planet Imager combines adaptive optics and coronagraphy to correct distortions from Earth's atmosphere and obscure noise from host stars to directly observe planets which millions of times fainter than the stars they orbit. He has also worked on speculative instrument designs such as star shades and the solar gravitational lens which could revolutionize the future of exoplanet imaging. You can read more about this technique here. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Astronomers recently announced that, with the help of the ESO VLT, they had observed a new type of small — yet powerful — stellar explosion: a Micronova. The study, which was published in "Nature" on April 20, was led by Dr. Simone Scaringi, astronomer at Durham University in the UK. We are pleased to welcome Simone to tonight's WSH to tell us more about this exciting discovery. Simone earned his undergraduate BSc in Mathematics with Astronomy at the University of Southampton, after which he obtained both a M.Phil and PhD also from Southampton in the Astronomy group (2010). He spent the next two years at Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands, as a postdoctoral fellow before moving to KU Leuven, Belgium, in 2012 with a FWO Pegasus Marie Curie fellowship. In 2015 Simone joined the Max-Planck-Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany where he held a Humboldt fellowship. In 2017 Simone was appointed lecturer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and in 2018 he moved to the United States as an Assistant Professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, USA. Since 2020 he has been an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy at Durham University. Simone's primary research interests are accretion physics across the scales, compact objects, time-series analysis, machine learning, and Galactic photometric surveys. You can learn more about Simone and his research by visiting his faculty website at Durham University as well as his personal website. You can also follow him on Facebook as well as Twitter, although he admits to rarely using Twitter! IMAGE CREDIT: This artist's impression shows a two-star system where micronovae may occur. The blue disc swirling around the bright white dwarf in the centre of the image is made up of material, mostly hydrogen, stolen from its companion star. Towards the centre of the disc, the white dwarf uses its strong magnetic fields to funnel the hydrogen towards its poles. As the material falls on the hot surface of the star, it triggers a micronova explosion, contained by the magnetic fields at one of the white dwarf's poles. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser, L. Calçada **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

There always seems to be so many news stories that we never get to cover - but tonight we will get to discuss a few more than usual! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

If you are a long-time viewer of the Weekly Space Hangout, then Dr. Paul Sutter is no stranger to you at all. For several years, he was one of our on-air journalists (along with Dr. Kimberly Cartier and Dr. Morgan Rehnberg.) Since leaving the WSH fold, Paul has continued to be one of the busiest people around. Tonight we are excited to welcome Paul back to the show (even if it is for only one night) so he can bring us all up to date with everything he has been doing - as well as hopefully share a few exciting things he has planned. But first, let me share some of the highlights. In addition to being the author of two books (with a third in the works that is due in 2023,) Paul regularly writes articles for Space.com, Ars Technica, Nautilus, Undark, Live Science, and many more , with his articles syndicating to news outlets worldwide. When he isn't writing new content for publication everywhere, Paul hosts numerous science shows across all platforms, including "How the Universe Works" on Science Channel, "Space Out" on Discovery, and "Edge of Knowledge" on Ars Technica. And who can forget that he writes and hosts his "Ask a Spaceman" podcast, which is one of the top podcasts in the world! Oh - and if that isn't enough - did I mention Paul has been traveling extensively through his collaboration with Syren Modern Dance. "Ticktock" is a stage experience exploring the nature of time through a woven performance of narration, music, and movement. And this year he joined Syren as a U.S. Cultural Ambassador to the World Expo in Dubai! But perhaps the most exciting news is that in December 2021 Paul and Kate St. Amand, co-artistic director of Syren Modern Dance (and the real brains behind "Ticktock") became engaged!!!! CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU BOTH!!! Paul earned his PhD in physics in 2011 as a Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellow at the University of Illinois. He then spent three years as a research fellow at the Paris Institute for Astrophysics followed by two years at the Trieste Observatory in Italy. Paul currently holds a research professorship at the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University and a guest researcher position at the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Previously he held a joint position as the chief scientist at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio, and as a cosmological researcher at the Ohio State University. You can learn more about Paul by visiting his website and be sure to follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And don't forget to subscribe to his Ask a Spaceman podcast! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Let's face it - there isn't a single one of us who hasn't gazed at myriad stunning astronomy images that are readily available on the web. Whether it's Jupiter's Great Red Spot, Saturn's gorgeous rings, desolate Martian landscapes, or a spectacular deep sky object, the "raw material" behind each of these beauties is often publicly available data collected by survey missions. But how exactly does a long string of seemingly random "ones and zeros" get tranformed into such amazing visual imagery? Tonight, Kevin Gill, the image processing "magician", is with us to give us an introduction into how to access the public archives as well as how to process their data. Kevin Gill is a software and spaceflight engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, California. He enjoys astrophotography and processing images collected by numerous missions include Cassini, Voyager, Galileo, Curiosity Rover, Perseverance Rover, HiRISE, Juno, Akatsuki, Hubble, and more. To learn more about Kevin's image processing and his open source custom image processing software, be sure to visit his website. While you are there, be sure to have a look at his amazing portfolio. Don't forget to follow Kevin on Flickr, Twitter, and Instagram. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Tonight we are very excited to welcome Amber Dubill from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to the WSH. Amber has worked on both IMAP and DART, and also has a keen interest in advanced solar sail design concepts. Solar sails have long been theorized as being a viable means of spacecraft propulsion — eventually — and we do seem to be moving closer to their being a reality… In June 2019, the Planetary Society succesfully launched their crowdfunded, proof-of-concept LightSail 2, and it is still going strong! In fact, you can check on its current status here. Meanwhile, in Rochester NY, Dr. Grover Swartzlander from Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) was developing a new approach to solar sail design - one that could potentially allow spacecraft to photograph the poles of the sun for the first time! In April 2019 RIT and Dr. Swartzlander were awarded a 2019 NIAC Phase 2 award to explore the feasibility of diffractive solar sails! As a mechanical engineering student at RIT, Amber worked closely with Dr. Swartzlander on the diffractive solar sail design, and their collaboration continues today. Amber started her experience on low cost, high risk CubeSats space at RIT as a student and at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). This evolved into research on advanced technology concepts for spacecraft. She has developed expertise in the use of solar sailing, and has become a champion for diffractive solar sailing through collaboration on NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts. She continues working to further develop diffractive solar sailing technology: a new type of massless, infinite propulsion, that will enable spacecraft to sail around our Sun and view it like never before. To stay up to date with Amber's research, follow her on LinkedIn as well as on Facebook. You can learn more about Amber's and Dr. Swartzlander's collaboration in this podcast. You can read more about the NIAC Phase II award for RIT here. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we welcome Dr. Justin Walsh to the show to tell us about the archaeology of space. Wait… WHAT???? You read that correctly… the archaeology of space. Justin is a PI of the International Space Station Archaeological Project (ISSAP) [https://issarchaeology.org/], the first large-scale space archaeology project. Initiated in 2015, the archaeological study of a space habitat — specifically the ISS — is aimed at understanding the "evolving cultural, social, and material structures in the ISS's unique context." Justin is an archaeologist who researches and teaches Mediterranean art and archaeology at Chapman University in Irvine, CA. He is listed in the Register of Professional Archaeologists and has worked on excavations around the world. His other areas of interest include studying problems related to cultural heritage management, especially including the emerging field of space archaeology which led him, together with his co-PI Dr. Alice Gorman from Flinders University, to develop the first large-scale archaeological investigation of a human habitation site in space. To learn more about ISSAP visit the project's website: https://issarchaeology.org/ You can stay up to date with ISSAP by following them on Twitter (https://twitter.com/issarchaeology) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ISSarchaeology) To learn more about Justin and his other archaeological research, visit https://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/justin-walsh. Be sure to also follow him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jstpwalsh). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are airing Fraser's pre-recorded interview with award-winning author, and documentary director Dwight Steven-Boniecki. Dwight is the director of a film called Searching For Skylab - a largely forgotten story that tells the story of the space station that preceded the ISS. The documentary features never-before-seen footage revealing incredible feats of science and technology achieved by the space station and NASA astronauts. While Skylab is perhaps best remembered for its spectacular crash into the Australian desert in the summer of 1979, the missions themselves provided the scientific community with invaluable information about our planet, the sun, space, and the universe itself. Dwight was born in Sydney, Australia in 1969 a few months before man walked on the moon. He spent much of his childhood fascinated with space exploration - growing up in the shadow of Apollo and under the direct influence of science fiction films such as Star Wars. The latter shaping his desire to work in the film/television industry. After studying television theory at North Sydney Technical College he moved to San Diego, USA. He returned to Australia and worked in TV before heading back to university where he majored in Psychology. Following his studies he decided that television was where he truly wanted to be and returned to the TV industry. From there he heard about the expansion on satellite TV in Eastern Europe and jumped on a plane to work in Europe: first in Great Britain, and then in Germany - where he still works today as a transmission engineer. All the while, his interest in space exploration never left him. The advance of DVDs and the internet saw him revisiting the missions he recalled watching as a young child. While watching the missions again, he began to wonder about the technology behind the images he was watching, and so he began researching the television systems developed by NASA mainly to satisfy his own curiosity. To his dismay he discovered that while the information was available, it was not easy to access, and had never been comprehensively written about. He set about to change that, and ended up writing his first book, "Live TV From the Moon". Along the way he befriended many of the people who were directly involved in building the TV cameras which transmitted arguably the most important television signals ever received on planet earth - and is proud to have been able to tell their story. Learn all about Searching for Skylab on the project's webpage (https://searchingforskylab.com/) where you can watch trailers as well as purchase your own copy of the movie and other memorabilia. You can also follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sf_skylab?lang=en You can learn more about Dwight on his website (https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/dwightSB.html).  **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

Another week with no guest - but that means we get to talk about MORE NEWS!!! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

On March 8, the ESO announced in their Press Release (https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2205/?lang) that a team of researchers from Leiden University, The Netherlands, had detected the largest molecule to date within a planetary disc. At 9-atoms, dimethyl ether is considered a precursor of larger organic molecules that can lead to the emergence of life. Tonight we are pleased to air Fraser's prerecorded interview with two members of the team that detected the molecule, Nashanty Brunken and Dr. Alice Booth, who will tell us more about this amazing detection. Nashanty Brunken is an Astronomy Masters student at Leiden University with experience in Astrochemistry research. She is a writer at Leiden Science Magazine and De Universum. Previously, Nashanty was an astronomy Student Ambassador with experience in Public Relations and Communications. Dr. Alice Booth is an Astrochemistry PostDoc at Leiden Observatory. She earned her PhD from the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leeds, and her BS in Physics from the University of Aberdeen, her hometown, in 2016. She is interested in the formation, composition and detection of (exo)planets, and her current research centers around the structure and composition of protoplanetary disks. In addition to her research, Alice is passionate about science communication, has been involved with the organisation Pint of Science for a number of years, and coordinated Leeds Pint of Science 2019. Be sure to follow Nashanty on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nashanty-brunken-026514212/). You can learn more about Alice on her personal website (https://aliceboothastronomy.wordpress.com/), her professional website (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/alice-booth#tab-1), and be sure to follow her on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Alice_Centauri). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

On March 2, 2022, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reported (refer to Press Release: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2204/?lang) that the HR 6819 system, believed to be the home of the closest black hole to earth, is, in fact, "a 'vampire' two-star system in a rare and short-lived stage of its evolution." HR 6819, just 1000 light-years from earth, does not include a black hole. The study was led by Dr. Abigail Frost from KY Leuven, and we are extremely please to welcome Dr. Frost to the Weekly Space Hangout tonight. Dr. Abigail Frost is a postdoctoral research associate at KU Leuven, a research university in Belgium. Born and raised in the UK, her journey into astrophysics started with her master's studies at the University of Exeter (UK). She then did her PhD at the University of Leeds before moving to Belgium to start her academic career. Her research focuses on studying the most influential stars in our Universe - massive stars. Using multiple observing techniques and modelling, she investigates how these stars form and how stars that exist in pairs (or even greater groups) evolve and how their companion stars can affect that evolution. You can learn more about Abigail by visiting her website: https://sites.google.com/view/abigail-frost-astro/home. You can also follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigail-frost-astro/) as well as on Twitter (@AstroDrFrost) https://twitter.com/AstroDrFrost **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week is another news roundup! And what could be better than having a guest join us straight from the "Breaking News" headlines! Joining us tonight is Seth Lockman, Communications Director for bluShift Aerospace, fresh off their successful static fire test of their MAREVL 2.0 rocket last evening (March 1, 2022)! CONGRATULATIONS to Sascha Deri and everyone at bluShift!!! You can view the YouTube video of the test fire here: https://youtu.be/UwZclCjTM5k?t=3810 Learn more about bluShift Aerospace on their webpage: https://www.blushiftaerospace.com/ Would you like to invest in sustainable aerospace? You can by investing in bluShift here: https://wefunder.com/blushiftaerospace **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week is another news roundup! Be prepared for an entire hour of science news! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week is another news roundup! Be prepared for an entire hour of science news! Oh yeah - a certain DESK may be making a return! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are airing Fraser's prerecorded interview with Michael Foley, co-author of a recently published paper that talks about how the local bubble around the Sun drives nearby star formation. You can watch Carolyn Collins Petersen talk about this research during the January 19, 2022, WSH News Roundup (https://youtu.be/A_QcGmGBYDk?t=1737) Michael Foley is a fourth-year NSF Graduate Research Fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics where he works with magnetohydrodynamics simulations of stellar feedback and turbulence. Mike earned his undergraduate degree in Physics and Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame where he conducted research on supernovae, exoplanets, and primordial nucleosynthesis. In addition to his research, Mike is very passionate about science education and equity/inclusion initiatives. In his free time, enjoys enjoy literature, soccer, volleyball, chess, and traveling. Be sure to visit Mike's Harvard webpage (https://scholar.harvard.edu/michaelfoley/home) and you can read the research paper about the Local Bubble on arXiv here: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2201/2201.05124.pdf **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Sian Proctor, Inspiration4 Mission Pilot, to the Weekly Space Hangout. On September 16, 2021, the Inspiration4 all-civilian orbital mission to space launched from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A atop a Falcon 9 launch vehicle. Dr. Sian Proctor is a geoscientist, explorer, space artist, and astronaut. She is also an analog astronaut and has completed four analog missions including the all-female SENSORIA Mars 2020 mission at the Hawai'i Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) Habitat, the NASA funded 4-months Mars mission at HI-SEAS, a 2-weeks Mars mission at the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS), and a 2-weeks Moon mission in the LunAres Habitat. Through art and Space2inspire (https://myspace2inspire.com/) Sian encourages people to use their unique, one-of-a-kind strengths, and passion to inspire those within their reach and beyond. Her goal is to help create a Just, Equitable, Diverse, and Inclusive space (J.E.D.I. space) for all of humanity as we advance human spaceflight. Sian spent 21 years as a professor teaching geology, sustainability, and planetary science at South Mountain Community College, Phoenix, Arizona. She is currently the Open Educations Resource Coordinator for the Maricopa Community College District. Sian has a B.S. in Environmental Science, an M.S. in Geology, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction: Science Education. She recently finished a sabbatical at Arizona State University's Center for Education Through Exploration creating virtual field trips. She did her 2012-13 sabbatical at the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute developing their science of disasters curriculum. She has appeared in multiple international science shows and is currently on A World Without NASA and Strange Evidence. You can learn more about Sian by visiting her website (http://www.drsianproctor.com/). To view (and purchase) Sian's art, visit Space2inspire (https://myspace2inspire.com/). And of courdse be sure to follow her on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Dr.Sian.Proctor/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/drsianproctor), and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/drsianproctor). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Ralph McNutt to the WSH. Two weeks ago, Dave Dickinson introduced us to a proposed new mission by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, the Interstellar Probe (https://interstellarprobe.jhuapl.edu/). Ralph is the Principal Investigator for this exciting new mission and he is here tonight to tell us more about it. Dr. Ralph McNutt is the chief scientist in the Space Department at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, which he joined in 1992. As project scientist for the MESSENGER mission, he serves as the principal investigator's "right-hand man" in making sure that the spacecraft, mission design and experiment plan answer all six of the major science questions the project will investigate at the innermost planet. He will participate in analysis of Mercury's surface composition using data from MESSENGER's X-Ray Spectrometer and Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer instruments. Ralph is also a co-investigator on NASA's New Horizons (Pluto-Kuiper Belt) mission, a team member of the Cassini Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer investigation and a science team member of two Voyager investigations. He has been involved in a range of space physics research projects and mission studies, including studies of the magnetospheres of the outer planets, the interaction of the solar wind with the interstellar medium, solar neutrinos, and solar probe and interstellar probe missions for the future. He has held various NASA grants and served on various NASA review and planning panels and Science and Technology Definition Teams for Solar Probe (twice) and Interstellar Probe. He has published over 150 science and engineering papers and over 250 scientific and engineering abstracts and given over 150 professional and popular talks. Ralph received his bachelor's of science degree in physics at Texas A&M University in 1975 and his doctorate in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980. He has been at APL since 1992 and before that held positions at Visidyne, Inc., MIT, and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. You can learn more about the Interstellar Probe Mission on their website (https://interstellarprobe.jhuapl.edu/) or by reading the Interstellar Probe Study 2019 Report (https://interstellarprobe.jhuapl.edu/uploadedDocs/papers/588-ISP-Study-2019-Report_PR.pdf) **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we have no guest scheduled, so it will be an hour of news! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Scott Bellamy to the WSH. Scott is the Mission Manager for NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission which successfully launched in the early morning hours from Vandenberg atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on November 24, 2021. Scott Bellamy is one of the Mission Managers in the Planetary Missions Program Office (PMPO) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, AL. Presently, Scott is responsible for day-to-day oversight of the Europa Clipper flagship mission, as well as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission. DART's mission is to conduct a real-life experiment in changing an asteroid's orbit through kinetic impact. In late September 2022, DART will intercept the moonlet (i.e., Dimorphos,) of the asteroid Didymos — a binary system — and slow Dimorphos' orbit by up to 10 minutes. DART is the first-ever mission of this type and is sponsored by NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office. Europa Clipper, on the other hand, will launch in October 2024 to perform a detailed exploration of Jupiter's ocean-world moon, Europa. This mission will provide priceless information on the thickness and composition of the ice shell to possibly enable a future mission to land a probe on Europa and search for microbial life. Prior to these missions, Scott was simultaneously the Mission Manager for another project that we at CosmoQuest hold near-and-dear to our hearts, the Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission to obtain and return the first-ever United States asteroid sample; the NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster–Commercial (NEXT-C) project providing DART's primary propulsion; and the Near Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor) mission to provide the capability for detecting low-observable asteroids. Scott originally came to Marshall Space Flight Ccenter as the Air Force Liaison Office in 2008 and afterwards retired with over 25 years of service. He then served in several roles, including being a member of the very small team that shaped what later became the Space Launch System (SLS), before joining the Planetary Missions Program Office in 2013. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

To ring in 2022 on Weekly Space Hangout we are pleased and excited to welcome Nicole Stott to the show. Nicole is an astronaut, aquanaut, artist, mom, and now author of her first book Back to Earth: What Life In Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet – And Our Mission To Protect It. She creatively combines the awe and wonder of her spaceflight experience with her artwork to inspire everyone's appreciation of our role as crewmates here on Spaceship Earth. Nicole is a veteran NASA Astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days living and working in space as a crewmember on both the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle. Personal highlights of her time in space were performing a spacewalk (10th woman to do so), flying the robotic arm to capture the first HTV, working with her international crew in support of the multi-disciplinary science onboard the orbiting laboratory, painting a watercolor (now on display at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum), and of course the life-changing view of our home planet out the window. Nicole is also a NASA Aquanaut. In preparation for spaceflight, she was a crewmember on an 18-day saturation dive mission at the Aquarius undersea laboratory. Nicole believes that the international model of peaceful and successful cooperation we have experienced in the extreme environments of space and sea holds the key to the same kind of peaceful and successful cooperation for all of humanity here on Earth. On her post-NASA mission, she is a co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation (https://www.spaceforartfoundation.org/) — uniting a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art. You can read Nicole's full NASA biography here: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/stott-np.pdf To learn more about Nicole, be sure to visit her websites http://www.nicolestott.com and https://www.spaceforartfoundation.org/, and be sure to follow her on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/astro_nicole/) and on Twitter (https://twitter.com/spaceforartfoun). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week marks the final episode of 2021, and we are excited to welcome Dr. Kevin Croker from University of Hawai'i at Mānoa! Kevin led a team that compared data from simulated black hole mergers with that from gravitational waves detected by the LIGO–Virgo collaboration. This comparison led to a surprising conclusion: ignoring the expansion of the universe may be limiting the scientific understanding of black-hole physics. The team hypothesizes that that as the universe expands outward following the Big Bang, all objects with mass grow as well - and Black Holes are no exception. This new process has been dubbed "Cosmological Coupling." Kevin Croker is an affiliate graduate faculty at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. His research interest is Einstein's theory of gravitation and General Relativity (GR). He is currently exploring the observational consequences of cosmological energy shifts within relativistic compact objects (e.g. stellar collapse remnants such as GEODEs and neutron stars). His thesis work focused on cosmological applications of GR, in particular, the Dark Energy problem, and his past work has focused on the use of numerical simulations to compare and constrain proposed extensions of GR through existing astrophysical data. He firmly believes that observation is paramount. You can read about Kevin's research in articles at PhysicsWorld: https://physicsworld.com/a/cosmological-coupling-is-making-black-holes-bigger-study-suggests/ and LiveScience: https://www.livescience.com/black-holes-expanding-with-universe The research is also described in The Astrophysical Journal Letters: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ac2fad You can learn more about Kevin and his research on his website: https://www.phys.hawaii.edu/~kcroker/ **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Jake Abbott, director of the Telerobotics Laboratory at the University of Utah to the WSH. The proliferation of Space Debris has become an increasingly alarming reality. In fact, as recently as December 3, 2021, "The International Space Station (ISS) had to swerve away from a fragment of a U.S. launch vehicle" (source: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/international-space-station-swerves-dodge-space-junk-2021-12-03/). In a paper published in November 2021 in the science journal Nature , Jake and his research team have proposed a new method of dealing with the debris: using a series of spinning magnets to move these objects. You can read more about their proposed solution here https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/waste-of-space/. Jake Abbott is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and an Adjunct Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Utah, and he is the director of the Telerobotics Laboratory. He joined the University of Utah in 2008. Before coming to Utah, he spent three years in Switzerland as a postdoctoral researcher working with Brad Nelson at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich. Dr. Abbott received his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University in 2005 working with Allison Okamura, his M.S. from the University of Utah in 2001, and his B.S. from Utah State University in 1999, all in Mechanical Engineering. Jake Abbott's research has been funded by the NSF (including the CAREER Award), the NIH, NASA, the Air Force, and industry. He and his co-authors have won a number of Best Paper and Best Poster Awards at international conferences. He is currently an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Robotics Research, and was previously an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Robotics. In Jake's spare time, he's a movie buff, a foodie, and an all-around supporter of the arts and the community in Salt Lake City. Jake's wife is a flamenco dancer and instructor in Salt Lake City, and he plays guitar and sings as part of her group. You can learn more about Jake and his research by visiting https://www.telerobotics.utah.edu/index.php/People/JakeAbbott and https://www.mech.utah.edu/directory/faculty/jake-abbott/. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we welcome Dr. Paul Halpern, professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. His new book, "Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate," brings to life one of the greatest clashes of ideas in the history of science. Dr. Paul Halpern is a professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and the author of seventeen popular science books, including The Quantum Labyrinth, Einstein's Dice and Schrodinger's Cat, and Synchronicity. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He lives near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Be sure to follow Paul on Twitter (https://twitter.com/phalpern) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/DrPaulHalpern/). And don't forget to get your own copy of Flashes of Creation from your favorite book retailer! **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Saverio Cambioni to the Weekly Space Hangout. In October 2020, OSIRIS-REx successfully collected (and stowed) a sample from the asteroid Bennu in a Touch-And-Go (TAG) maneuver that could not have been attempted — much less completed — without the assistance of the CosmoQuest community who participated in the Bennu Mappers project. Bennu Mappers launched on May 22, 2019, and ended a mere 92 days later on August 21. During this time, 3640 community members examined 4509 images which had been collected by ORSIRIS_REx during its 2 years of orbiting Bennu. They were tasked with identifying and marking rocks that exceeded a minimum size. Each image was marked by 15 people which amounts to over 14 Million total marks! This data was then forwarded to the OSIRIS-REx team and used to identify safe candidate landing sites, including Nightingale Crater where the sample was collected. Needless to say, by the end of marking images, the weary cry of virtually everyone involved was "{EXPLETIVE} Bennu!" followed immediately by "SO. MANY. ROCKS!" In a paper titled "Fine-Regolith Production on Asteroids Controlled by Rock Porosity" [https://rdcu.be/cy1TH] which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on October 6, 2021, Saverio and his co-authors may have solved the mystery as to why there are SO. MANY. BOULDERS on Bennu by using machine learning and temperature data. Dr. Saverio Cambioni earned his PhD in the Planetary Sciences at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona, with a thesis on the application of Machine Learning to Planetary Sciences. He also holds a BSc and MSc in Aerospace and Space Engineering from Sapienza, University of Rome. Saverio is currently the Crosby​ Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on the formation and evolution of asteroids and terrestrial planets. You can learn more about Saverio and his research by visiting his website: https://sites.google.com/view/saveriocambioni/about-me Be sure to also follow him on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AstroSave1) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/saverio.cambioni) **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/pVGXJDUKud ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. Stephon Alexander to the WSH to chat about his new book, Fear of a Black Universe: An Outsider's Guide to the Future of Physics, which was published on August 31. What lurks beyond the black hole singularity in our galaxy? How did cosmic structure emerge from a chaotic and featureless early universe? Is there a hidden link between the emergence of life and the laws of physics? These questions and other major problems of theoretical physics seem beyond the reach of human knowledge. But cosmologist Stephon Alexander is not so sure. Is the science really too hard, or could it be that a lack of demographic and intellectual diversity—a literal and figurative fear of the unknown—is holding science back? As Alexander explains, greatness in physics requires transgression and a willingness to reject conventional expectations. For many years, there's been a consensus that theoretical physics has failed to break new ground in the way that led to the quantum and relativity revolutions early in the last century. Some think it's because physics has become too difficult, but Alexander argues that the real problem is that most scientists avoid delving into uncharted or forbidden territories out of the fear—often justified—of facing reputational and professional penalties. Furthermore, he explains that the physics community is woefully homogenous, and has a poor track record of welcoming people from diverse backgrounds into the field. Stephon Alexander is a professor of cosmology at Brown University, an established jazz musician and an immigrant from Trinidad who grew up in the Bronx. He is the 2020 president of the National Society of Black Physicists and leads Brown University's Presidential Scholars program, which boosts underrepresented students. In addition to his academic achievements, he was the scientific consultant to Ava DuVernay for the feature film A Wrinkle in Time. His work has been featured by The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WIRED, and many other outlets. He has been a guest on Nova, the “Brian Lehrer Show”, and Neil deGrasse Tyson's “StarTalk,” among much else. You can learn more about Stephon by visiting his website https://stephonalexander.com/ and following him on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/drstephon.alexander/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/stephstem), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/stephonjazz/), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgesReiNx9TH7rQIVhTt5aw). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/pVGXJDUKud ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are thrilled to be joined by astrophotographer Ian Lauer. Ian is an astronomer and astrophotographer with a passion for public speaking and sharing the wonders of the night sky with the public. He has worked with telescope manufacturers and retailers around the world to building telescope systems for private and professional observatories, astrophotographers, government projects and educational institutions. Ian has a knack for making people laugh and he incorporates this skill into transforming what can often be dry and dull science topics into fun and exciting concepts. Whether he's speaking in front of thousands of people or one-on-one, Ian's passion and energy always shines through regardless of the delivery medium, be it podcasts, stage talks, or TV shows. In addition to astronomy, Ian's other passions include backpacking, camping, and particularly metal music. According to Ian: "I've spent decades attending live metal music events, always in search of up and coming musical artists. I have and will continue to support and promote artists from the metal scene, both big and small. The joy of discovery knows no boundaries, and music is no exception." You can learn more about Ian and how to register for his astrophotography workshops by visiting his website: https://ianlauerastro.com/ Be sure to follow Ian on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ianlauerastro), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ianlauerastro/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/ianlauerastro/), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKmp0RwvfcTm4ohmqNviIkA). **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/pVGXJDUKud ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome CalTech graduate student Dillon Dong to the WSH. Dillon was the lead investigator in a study that determined that a bright radio flare discovered in data collected by the Very Large Array (VLA) Sky Survey in 2017 was the result of a black hole or neutron star crashing into its companion star in a never-before-seen process. You can learn more about this study and its surprising results here: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/a-black-hole-triggers-a-premature-supernova Dillon Dong is a final year graduate student working on finding and characterizing astronomical sources that appear and disappear on human timescales. For his Ph.D thesis, he cataloged 1.5 million radio sources in the largest high-resolution radio sky survey to date: the Very Large Array Sky Survey. By looking for sources that were not detected (but should have been) in historical observations, he discovered >1000 sources that have newly appeared in the radio sky. One of these sources was a never-before-seen type of supernova, caused by the merger of a black hole or neutron star with its massive star companion. This explosion was published in the journal Science, and received press coverage in 40+ countries. You can learn more about Dillon and his research on his website: https://dillon-z-dong.github.io/ **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.

This week we are excited to welcome Dr. John Forbes to the Weekly Space Hangout. John is a theoretical and computational astrophysicist at the Flatiron Institute, a division of the Simons Foundation, in New York City. He studies how galaxies and stars form using supercomputer simulations, statistical modeling, and machine learning. John recently collaborated with Dr. Nia Imara from UC Santa Cruz and James Weaver from Harvard to develop a series of nine models that incorporate the three forces that govern how stellar nurseries are formed: turbulence, gravity, and magnetic fields. Using these models, they have 3D printed colorized nebulae "marbles" that visually represent the filaments and other material found in star forming regions. John earned his undergraduate degree at Caltech, a PhD at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and did a fellowship at Harvard before joining the Flatiron Institute. He is a huge fan of science fiction & board games. His favorite science fiction books include The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu, and Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. His current favorite game is Alchemists, though for scientists some of the game mechanics (like losing a point of reputation for having too few theories published at a conference) might hit a bit close to home. On a more serious note, John cares a lot about social justice in & out of astronomy. You can read more about the 3D printed nebulae here: https://www.universetoday.com/152509/astronomers-create-3d-printed-nebulae/ You can learn more about John and his research by visiting his website at www.johncforbes.com And don't forget to follow him on Twitter where his handle is @redshiftless. **************************************** The Weekly Space Hangout is a production of CosmoQuest. Want to support CosmoQuest? Here are some specific ways you can help: ► Subscribe FREE to our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/cosmoquest ► Subscribe to our podcasts Astronomy Cast and Daily Space where ever you get your podcasts! ► Watch our streams over on Twitch at https://www.twitch.tv/cosmoquestx – follow and subscribe! ► Become a Patreon of CosmoQuest https://www.patreon.com/cosmoquestx ► Become a Patreon of Astronomy Cast https://www.patreon.com/astronomycast ► Buy stuff from our Redbubble https://www.redbubble.com/people/cosmoquestx ► Join our Discord server for CosmoQuest - https://discord.gg/X8rw4vv ► Join the Weekly Space Hangout Crew! - http://www.wshcrew.space/ Don't forget to like and subscribe! Plus we love being shared out to new people, so tweet, comment, review us... all the free things you can do to help bring science into people's lives.