Podcasts about Hubble Space Telescope

In this week's episode, I talk about the possibility of a copy of the Hubble Space Telescope, if satellites could relay information like a mesh network, and if it's even possible for plants to survive on the surface of Mars. 00:00 Start 01:22 Could we launch a copy of Hubble? 03:34 Could satellites relay information like a mesh network? 06:17 Could plants survive on Mars? 08:52 Could Planet 9 be dark matter? 11:12 Do globular clusters ever collapse into disks? 12:36 Are there any new questions about Lagrange Points? 14:07 Would the Solar System change if you build a Dyson Sphere? 17:08 Could we see the Oort Cloud? 19:39 Could we genetically modify humans to survive on Mars? 22:32 Are we the center of the Big Bang? 24:32 Could a warp drive escape a black hole? 25:58 Could we fix Mars by crashing Phobos into it? 27:11 Will there be a servicing mission for James Webb? 28:41 Will humans visit anywhere other than Mars? 31:13 Could life have formed shortly after the Big Bang? 32:50 Could a moon be bigger than its planet? 34:43 How could the Universe be infinite if it's expanding for a finite time? Want to be part of the questions show? Ask a short question on any video on my channel. I gather a bunch up each week and answer them here.

In today's episode of future tech. I want to talk about why space telescopes are so important for not only space exploration but for the future of mankind. You may have heard in the news recently that NASA recently launched the James Webb Space Telescope. Maybe you don't even know what it is or why it's important. But I'm sure everyone has heard of the Hubble telescope. It's been in orbit around Earth for decades now giving us images and glimpses of the universe going back millions of years. But there are some clear differences between the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb telescope. This and many other important facts are what I'll cover in this episode. 

When two stars come together, the result can be spectacular. Twenty years ago today, for example, astronomers observed a brilliant eruption in Monoceros, the unicorn. It probably was triggered by the merger of two stars. At its peak, the outburst was a million times brighter than the Sun. The system is known as V838 Monocerotis. It's about 20,000 light-years from Earth. It's on the rim of the Milky Way Galaxy, in its outermost spiral arm. And it appears to belong to a small cluster of bright, heavy stars. The system became famous a couple of years after the outburst thanks to Hubble Space Telescope. Its pictures showed a brilliant red star surrounded by rings that looked like puffs of cotton candy. The rings weren't related to the stars, though. Instead, they were clouds of dust around the stars that were being lit up by the eruption. V838 Mon originally consisted of at least three stars. Two of them were especially big — roughly eight times the mass of the Sun. The third star was only about a third the Sun's mass. And on January 6th of 2002, as viewed from Earth, the small star appears to have plowed into one of the bigger ones. That triggered the eruption — a spectacular lightshow from a pair of merging stars. Monoceros climbs into view in the east and southeast by about 8 p.m., to the lower left of Orion. The unicorn is quite faint, though, so you need dark skies to see it. More about the unicorn tomorrow.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

The American space program is gearing up to send astronauts back to the Moon. A test flight of their new capsule and booster is scheduled for later this year. A series of robotic missions will begin this year as well. Many of those missions will look for frozen water and other resources to sustain human expeditions. A half-century ago, NASA was winding down its first wave of lunar exploration. The final Apollo missions were scheduled for launch in 1972, and the space agency was planning its next step. And 50 years today, it got the okay to go ahead. President Richard Nixon approved the space shuttle — a reusable rocket ship to carry astronauts to Earth orbit quickly, reliably, and often. It took almost a decade to get the shuttle ready to fly, though. And it never performed the way NASA said it would. It cost more, flew less, and proved to be tricky to operate. Two of the shuttles were destroyed in flight, killing 14 astronauts. Yet the shuttle did ferry satellites to space, including Hubble Space Telescope and a mission to Venus. Astronauts conducted scientific research, and assembled the International Space Station. The shuttle was retired a decade ago — 40 years after it was given a “go” to proceed. The destination for the next generation of spaceships — the Moon — has a brilliant companion tonight: the planet Jupiter. It's close to the upper right of the Moon as night falls. They drop from view about 8:30 or 9.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

[00:30] ‘Lift Up Your Eyes on High' (32 minutes)The Hubble Space Telescope gave us a penetrating look into the depths of God's awesome universe. As my father has said, the images we've gained from Hubble should “set our imaginations on fire” and “fill a human being” with “real joy”! Since its launch, Hubble has done that, and it may soon be replaced by the much more powerful James Webb Space Telescope. But as dazzling as the creation is, the real beauty behind the cosmos is the God who made it. God wants us to peer into the heavens to be inspired, to prove Him, and to stand in awe of Him. That is why He tells us in Isaiah 40:26: “Lift up your eyes on high”! [32:00] Take a ‘Fresh' Look at the Vaccine (22 minutes)Last week on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow told her viewers to “make a fresh decision” about getting the vaccine. “Even if it was not OK for you before,” she said, “it's OK for you to do it now.” In this segment, we take a fresh look at the vaccine and all of the adverse reactions it is causing.

The launch window is from 7:20 to 7:52 AM EST on December 25th, 2021! Tune in to see live broadcasts of the launch!!!!

In 1969, the Pentagon found itself with a stack of large telescope mirrors that it couldn't use. It had planned to launch them on Manned Orbiting Laboratory, a small space station. Astronauts would use the six-foot mirrors to spy on the Soviet Union and its allies. But improvements in robotic spy technology made the lab obsolete. So six of the mirrors eventually were given to the University of Arizona. It combined them to make a single telescope — the third-largest in the world at the time. The Multi-Mirror Telescope operated from 1979 to 1998, when the mirrors were replaced by a single piece of glass. Defense agencies have given several other big gifts to astronomy as well. In 1976, for example, the Air Force gave a whole observatory. It was built on a mountain peak in New Mexico after World War II to study the Sun. The Pentagon wanted to know how the Sun might affect radio communication, radar, and other technologies, so it built telescopes to find out. The observatory is still in operation. And NASA is preparing the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope for launch later this decade. It uses one of two spy satellites the National Reconnaissance Office gave to NASA a decade ago. Its primary mirror is the same size as the one in Hubble Space Telescope. But Roman's field of view is a hundred times wider. The telescope will study dark energy, exoplanets, and other leading topics — thanks to an astronomical gift. Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

The most successful scientific instrument ever launched into space, the Hubble Space Telescope, is about to be replaced. The James Webb Space Telescope blasts off from Kourou in French Guiana on Christmas Day. Bigger and better than the Hubble, Webb will see even further out into space and turbo-charge the hunt for earth-like planets closer to home. Today's Justin Webb speaks to Dr Stephanie Milam from NASA who is the Deputy Project Scientist for Planetary Science on the new James Webb Space Telescope. Today's science editor Tom Feilden also sends a report on the legacy of the Hubble and the hopes for the new telescope.

Dr. John Grunsfeld is a former NASA astronaut who flew 5 missions on the Space Shuttle, including 3 to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He also has a PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Chicago, and also served as NASA's Associate Administrator for Science. https://terryvirts.com/ Twitter: @AstroTerry Instagram: astro_terry

The James Webb Space Telescope is set to be the successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope, continuing its legacy of peering deeper into the cosmos but what does the world's most expensive telescope mean for us? Former U.S. President Donald Trump was booed by his own supporters after announcing that he had received his COVID-19 Booster Vaccine. As funny as it may seem from some points of view, what does it mean for the U.S. if some of the fervent fans of Trump start to feel like he has betrayed their values? Doug Ford is taking heat because of the vaccine rollout and pandemic response and it's coming from those both craving vaccines and opposing them. Dr. Isaac Bogoch joins the show for a bit of a retrospective on the pandemic in Ontario. The Federal Housing Minister, Ahmed Hussen, told Reuters that he supports cities implementing density measures, as well as banning foreign home buyers, to control the housing crunch. Would that solve the housing crisis? And politically speaking, how is the Federal government handling the pandemic? Guests: Paul Delaney, the Allan I. Carswell Chair for the Public Understanding of Astronomy, University Professor (Teaching Stream) York University, Toronto Brian J. Karem, Political Analyst for CNN, White House Reporter and host of ‘Just Ask the Question' Podcast Michael Taube, Troy Media Syndicated Columnist, Washington Times contributor, you can find his writings all over, and Former Speech Writer for Stephen Harper Dr. Isaac Bogoch, Staff Physician, General Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases Associate Professor, Dept. of Medicine, University of Toronto Ian Lee, Associate Professor with the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University Henry Jacek. Professor of Political Science, McMaster University Scott Radley, Drake's biggest fan, Host of The Scott Radley Show, Columnist with the Hamilton Spectator Diana Weeks, anchor with Global News Radio 900 CHML William P. Erskine, producer with Global News Radio 900 CHML   Host - Scott Thompson Content/Technical/Podcast Producer - William P. Erskine Podcast Co-Producer - Ben Straughan News Anchor - Diana Weeks Want to keep up with what happened in Hamilton Today? Subscribe to the podcast! https://omny.fm/shows/scott-thompson-show See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 141*NASA's new laser satellite launched into orbitThe future of space communications has been launched into orbit by NASA. The Laser Communications Relay Demonstration together with a joint NASA-U.S. Naval Research Laboratory space weather payload to study the Sun's radiation were launched as part of the U.S. Space Force's Space Test Program 3 mission.*Hubble back to full operationsNASA's Hubble Space Telescope is now back up and running after technicians were able to recovered the last of the orbiting observatory's four primary instruments – the Imaging Spectrograph.*Russia sends two more space tourists to the ISSA Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Japanese space tourists and a Russian Cosmonaut have docked successfully with the International Space Station.*Space Station antenna destroyed by space debrisMeanwhile, astronauts have finally been allowed to undertake a space walk outside the International Space Station to repair a broken antenna.*The Science ReportGrowing calls for a third booster dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the wake of the Omicron variantIBM build the first quantum computer with over a hundred quantum bits or qubits on a chip.Iran's actions are causing a nuclear crisis which is destabilizing the entire Middle EastAlex on Tech: global chip shortageListen to SpaceTime with our universal listen link: https://link.chtbl.com/spacetime Sponsor Details:This episode of SpaceTime is brought to you with the support of NordVPN…The world's leading VPN provider. Making your online data unreadable to others. Check them out and get a special holiday season discount offer (73% off), plus help support SpaceTime… visit https://nordvpn.com/stuartgary or use the coupon code STUARTGARY at checkout. Thank you…For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…To become a SpaceTime supporter and unlock commercial free editions of the show, gain early access and bonus content, please visit https://bitesz.supercast.com/ . Premium version now available via Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Episode 96 We are beyond thrilled to welcome Dr Jennifer Wiseman to the podcast today. We talk about her faith journey as well as her work in astronomy as she helps us to understand why the James Webb Space Telescope (launching this week), is going to take the Hubble to the next level. Her enthusiasm and wonder is contagious, so I hope you're ready to be inspired!    Dr Jennifer Wiseman is the Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) program of Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER). She is also an astrophysicist, studying the formation of stars and planetary systems using radio, optical, and infrared telescopes. She studied physics for her bachelor's degree at MIT, discovering comet Wiseman-Skiff in 1987. After earning her Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard University in 1995, she continued her research as a Jansky Fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and as a Hubble Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University. She also has an interest in national science policy and has served as an American Physical Society Congressional Science Fellow. She has worked with several major observatories and is currently a senior astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center.  She is also a public speaker and author, and enjoys giving talks on the inspiration of astronomy and scientific discovery to schools, youth and church groups, and civic organizations. She is a Fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation and a former Councilor of the American Astronomical Society.   https://sciencereligiondialogue.org/ https://hubblesite.org/ https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/ https://roman.gsfc.nasa.gov/      Support this podcast on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/DowntheWormholepodcast   More information at https://www.downthewormhole.com/   produced by Zack Jackson music by Zack Jackson and Barton Willis    Transcript  This transcript was automatically generated by www.otter.ai, and as such contains errors (especially when multiple people are talking). As the AI learns our voices, the transcripts will improve. We hope it is helpful even with the errors. Zack Jackson 00:05 You are listening to the down the wormhole podcast exploring the strange and fascinating relationship between science and religion.   Ian Binns 00:13 Our guest today is the director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science program of dialogue on science, ethics and religion, also known as dozer. She is also an astrophysicist studying the formation of stars and planetary systems using radio, optical and infrared telescopes. She studied physics for her bachelor's degree at MIT discovering comet Wiseman Skiff in 1987. After earning her PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 1995, she continued her research as the Jansky fellow at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, and as a Hubble Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University. She also has an interest in national science policy and has served as an American Physical Society congressional science fellow. She has worked with several major observatories, and is currently a senior astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center. She's also a public speaker and author and enjoys giving talks and inspiration of astronomy and scientific discovery to schools, youth and church groups, and civic organizations. She's a fellow of the American scientific affiliation, and a former Counselor of the American Astronomical Society. We're very excited to welcome Dr. Jennifer Wiseman to the show today.   Jennifer Wiseman 01:22 Thank you, it's my pleasure to join you.   Ian Binns 01:25 So, um, Jennifer, again, thank you for agreeing to come and talk, we just, you know, we've met you and I met several years ago, I know that you and Zach know each other as well. And so we kind of wanted to start off with what got you into astronomy. And then how did that grow to include your science and religion work as well,   Jennifer Wiseman 01:47 I grew up out in a rural area in Arkansas, on a family farm. And so I was just surrounded by nature growing up, we lived in a pretty area that had nearby lakes and rivers. So I enjoyed everything about the natural world, I thought we had animals of our own livestock and pets, but also lots of wildlife that I enjoyed seeing. And then I also enjoy just wandering around meadows and the streams and, you know, swimming, and kayaking, and all those kinds of things. And that made me appreciate the natural world, we also had dark night skies when I was growing up. So we could go out at night and see stars from horizon to horizon. And that is such a rare treat these days, most people live in cities or suburbs and have stray light from parking lots and stores and streets that create a glow in the sky and really drown out a lot of the beauty of seeing stars, unfortunately. But I was able to see the night sky, we would go on evening walks my parents and dogs and and I would enjoy these these regular walks. And I would imagine what it was like to, to go up where the stars are. And I would I was curious. So I think that started me out just being naturally curious about nature. And then science was a kind of a natural affinity then because science is basically the formal study of how nature works. And I had good teachers in my public schools who encouraged me in all kinds of subjects, science, mathematics, but also humanities and music. But all of that together, I think was the foundation and then Pair that with as I was growing up, there was a lot of flurry of interest about space exploration, the Voyager spacecraft, were just sending the first images back to earth, of moons around planets in our solar system, close up views we've never had before. I just thought this was fascinating. And you know, a lot of science fiction like Star Wars movies and things were starting to come out in the late 70s and 80s. And I was caught up in that too. So there was a lot of social interest in space, as well as my own natural affinity for nature. And all of that together, I think set the foundation for my interest in doing something related to the space program, but I didn't have a clue as to how to get involved in it. But thankfully, I had teachers and encouraging family and church that just encouraged me to go on and try anything I wanted. So I went on to study science.   Zack Jackson 04:42 That's beautiful.   Ian Binns 04:43 Yeah, there's a lot to take away from that. One of the things I love the most is you referred to Star Wars and Star Wars fans. Thank you for that.   Zack Jackson 04:53 genre that we've we've spent quite some time on this podcast talking about the value of science fiction and how it implants This sorts of love of cosmos in love of the world into people into children's minds. And so they grow up to great things. Yeah, that's so sorry. Go ahead. Sorry, I'm walking all over you. So I'm, I hear you say that there was a lot of support from family from, from friends and teachers and even church. Did you get any of that? That sort of feeling that science and and God are at odds that so many young Christians did as they're growing up? Did you taste any of that? Or was it all supportive?   Jennifer Wiseman 05:36 I never had any sense that there should be some kind of conflict between science and faith. In fact, quite the opposite. I grew up again, in a in a place where nature just surrounded us, it was a rural area where people had farms or they enjoy recreation on the lakes and rivers, and it was pretty and so we just naturally correlated the beauty of the natural world with our faith and our love for God, because we understood that God is the Creator, and God is responsible for the creation and called it good. So I think at a very basic level there, there really wasn't any sense of conflict, quite the opposite that science was the study of God's handiwork. And we should be grateful for that. Now, when it came to the particulars, like how do you interpret the opening verses of the biblical book of Genesis, that seems to stipulate that all of creation came into being in a few literal days and those kinds of things? You know, I think we, we probably took that rather literally in church and so forth. We didn't have any reason not to. But I think I was also given a sense of humility that our pastors and things would would tell us that God doesn't give us all the details in in Scripture that, that He's given us just enough for what we need to know to have a relationship with God, but but he's also given us mines and other tools and giving us more knowledge as time goes on. And so I think, even though I was probably schooled in a more literalistic view of Scripture growing up, I was also given a sense of humility, that there might be more to it than just what is more two more information that that God will give us than just what's written in Scripture. So I think that enabled me as I began to learn more about the scientific picture of the vast size and age of the universe and the development of life, I was able to correlate that with a humble view of scripture that God didn't give us all these details in Scripture, but delights in us using scientific knowledge to learn some of these rich details, and wow, are they Rich, I mean, the universe is not small. It's enormous, beyond our wildest imaginations, both in space and time. And I think that's something that fascinates me the most about astronomy is that it is a time machine, we can use telescopes to see out and that is equivalent to seeing back in time has taken time for the light to get to us from either planets in our solar system, or other stars or distant galaxies. And we can see how the universe has changed over time by looking back in time to distant objects in space. So I think what I did pick up growing up in terms of attention is more of a philosophical tension. I remember watching my favorite program on television, which was the cosmos program, which was a wonderful exploration of the universe. And I really admire Carl Sagan to this day, I'm so grateful for how he opened my eyes to the mysteries of the solar system and the universe beyond and introduced me to these images coming from the Voyager probes of the outer solar system, things like that. But every once in a while he and some other well, spoken scientist would interject some philosophical opinions and things that were kind of denigrating toward religion or religious faith and I picked that up even as a teenager and as a child. I couldn't quite articulate it, but I even then could sense that while I loved the Science, I didn't like some of the content Have dismissive comments I was hearing about religious faith and I, you know, I just kind of put tuck that away, in my mind kind of puzzling. Why does there have to be some kind of, of denigration of faith when you're talking about the majesties of science and, and then, of course, as I became an adult and a scientist, I realized that there is, of course, a strong difference between what the science is telling us about the natural world and how it works. And human philosophical interpretation of which there can be different opinions. And and trying to separate, you know, what is the science telling us from? What are the different human interpretations of what the natural world is telling us about human purpose and meaning, and even our beliefs and God and purpose. And I'm able to do that much better as a as an adult scientist, and to see where that wind falls, then I think a lot of folks in the public may be prepared for when they hear a scientist kind of crossing the line between talking about just the science and expressing personal philosophical views.   Zack Jackson 11:12 But I think you do so with the same sort of humility, like it spills over from, from your study of astronomy into your, into your religion and philosophy, that, like you study the stars, and you see the unbelievable fakeness. And you just can't help but let that spill over into everything that well, why would I know everything about philosophy? Why would I know everything about God, that's absurd. I don't even know everything about our solar system. There's like a certain humility, I think that comes from, from when you're really into, into that kind of science that I appreciate, I think, I think astronomy makes me a better Christian, or at least a more of a mystical one. Anyway,   Jennifer Wiseman 11:57 I think what astronomy does for me is not you know, sort of prove God or something like that, I think it's very hard to take something from the natural world and use it to prove or disprove something that isn't confined to just the natural, observable world. But what it does do, being a person of faith as I am in enrich that faith, I mean, I believe in God as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. And when I learn more about what that universe is like, that means that my reverence for God is much deeper. I mean, it's almost scary when you think about the ages of time we're talking about in terms of our own universe, and there may be other universes too, that we don't even know anything about. And yet we read in Scripture, that the same God who's responsible for this 13 point a billion years of the universe, and its content, and its evolution, is also concerned with the lives of us and of the sparrow, you know, of the, of the individual, what we would call insignificant wife in terms of time and space, and yet God chooses to call us significant because of God's own choosing and love. And so it's that kind of, you know, the infinitely large almost, and the infinitely small, almost, that God encompasses that's very hard for me to comprehend. But it does deepen my, my reverent fear and my appreciation for the kind of God that that we read about in Scripture, and that we experience as people of faith.   Zack Jackson 13:54 So you are the director of the American, the American Association for the Advancement of Science program of dialogue on science, ethics and religion, which is a huge mouthful. Which is triple A S. dozer, you know, for those who like acronyms, which is an organization that I think every single one of our listeners, like if you if you subscribe to this podcast, and this is an organization that you would be interested in learning more about, but I would wager to guess that a lot of them have never heard of it. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do and what the organization does and what kind of resources are available, how they can connect?   Jennifer Wiseman 14:40 Sure. Okay, so so the the world's largest scientific society is the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And that organization does exactly what it sounds like it triple as advances science for the good of people around the world. So AAA is publishes a journal scientific journal called science that many have heard of, or even written scientific articles for. AAA is also advocates the good use of science in society. So, AAA is has public education programs and programs helping legislators to see how science is beneficial to people in all walks of life, triple as sponsors some programs to advocate science for advancing human rights, and to work with different components of society to make sure science is being used to the benefit of all people. One of those programs is this dialogue program called the dialogue on science, ethics and religion, or doser. It's the you can find out about it by the website as.org/doser DDoS, er doser was thought of back in the 1990s, when scientists realized that to really be effective and communicating with people, we needed to understand how important religion and faith is in people's lives. And if we're really going to interface with different communities, especially in the US, we need to recognize that people's faith identity is a very important part of their worldview. Most people identify with a religion or a religious tradition, as an important aspect of their identity, and how they get a lot of their sense of values and worldview, including how they see the world and hear and articulate science and its use in their lives and work in ministries and so forth. So if scientists are not understanding of the importance of religion and faith in the lives of most people, and if they're not able to articulate science in a way that brings people on board and listen to the values of people from faith communities, then scientists are really missing a huge chance of understanding the value of science and how it can be incorporated into the lives of our culture. So the doser program was invented back in the 1990s, to start building those relationships between scientists and religious communities. These are religious communities of all faiths, and scientists of any faith or no faith, but building a dialogue about how science is important in the lives of our people in our culture. Today, the dozer program is very active, we have several projects, one of them, I think you guys are particularly knowledgeable, that is our science for seminaries project, where we work with seminaries from across the country, and even beyond the US that are interested in, in incorporating good science into the training of future pastors and congregational leaders, because science is a part of everyone's life today. So if a church wants to serve the world in the most effective way, they need to know to how to incorporate science into their ministries, if they want to be relevant to our culture, especially for young people, they need to understand the role of science. It's not just the old arguments about science and creation and evolution. A lot of people when they think about science and religion, they immediately wonder if there's some kind of an argument about how old the the world is. And you know, there are still some very interesting questions, of course, about How did life come into being and so forth. But most faith communities now are really much more excited about talking about many other aspects of science as well like space exploration. Could there be life beyond Earth or, or more practical things? How do we incorporate good science into ministries to the poor or helping people around the world have better food better, cleaner water? How do we get the best science incorporated into the best health care practices? I mean, this is of course come to the forefront during this pandemic with COVID-19 and trying to understand the science of vaccinations and the social reality of distributing vaccine and getting people to understand and trust the science enough to become protected as best we can against the terrible disease. So all these aspects Our I think invigorating a dialogue between faith communities and scientists in our dozer program really seeks to bring scientists and faith communities into better relationship and contact. And of course, these are overlapping communities. I mean, a lot of scientists themselves are people of faith from various faith traditions. But even scientists who are not or not, for the most part, are not hostile to faith communities, they just need a better architecture for building dialogue and relationship. In fact, most scientists already of course, are interfacing with people of faith, whether they know it or not the students in their classrooms, people in their lab and so forth. And so we also hold workshops for scientists, at scientific society meetings, and at research universities to help scientists better understand the important role that faith plays in the lives of many, probably most people in the US if you look at the polls, and how to make sure that they are incorporating a respect for that faith component of people's lives when they're talking about science in their classrooms, and, and in their interface with people in their public spheres of influence. Not just to help welcome people into science, but also to help people see how science is relevant to the values they already have.   Ian Binns 21:26 So I'm curious if we can shift a little bit a UML mentioned in your bio, that you've did have done some work with Hubble, the Hubble Space Telescope, and you know, we, this is going to be versus being released, hopefully, in the same day that the new The Next Generation Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope will be launched. And so can you talk to us a little bit about your work with the Hubble Space Telescope, and then maybe the distinction between Hubble that a lot of people know about and the new one, the James Webb Space Telescope and what your hopes are for that.   Jennifer Wiseman 22:02 I've had the privilege of working with many different types of telescopes throughout my astronomical career. My own research is based on the use of radio telescopes, which are these big dish shaped telescopes. My doctoral research used an array of them out in New Mexico called the Very Large Array or the VLA. In fact, you can drive out there and see the Very Large Array, southwest of Albuquerque. And with these kinds of telescopes, I've been able to study how stars form in interstellar clouds, you can peer in through the dust and see some of these regions where infant stars are forming. I've also used and worked with the Hubble Space Telescope, which is a platform that's now become very famous Hubble is a is a satellite orbiting the Earth. It's not very far above the earth just a little over 300 miles above the surface of the Earth, but it's up there to get it above the clouds. So you can get a much clearer image of objects in deep space, whether you're observing planets or stars or distant galaxies and Hubble has been operating for almost 32 years now, thanks to repeated visits from astronauts that have kept the observatory functioning by replacing cameras from time to time and repairing electronics. So so the the observatories in very good shape. We're recording this discussion right now in mid December looking forward to next week what we're anticipating as it's the launch of another very large space telescope called the James Webb Space Telescope, named after a NASA administrator who was a science supporter back in the Apollo years. This telescope will be every bit as good as Hubble in terms of getting beautiful images of space. But it will also be different from Hubble because it will be very sensitive to infrared wavelengths of light, the Hubble telescope sees visible light like our eyes can see. And even energetic light that's bluer than blue ultraviolet light, which is emitted from energetic processes in galaxies and in regions where stars are forming. Hubble can even see a little bit into the infrared part of the spectrum of light, so that's a little redder than red, which helps us to see somewhat into these interstellar clouds I mentioned where stars are still forming and planets are forming and to see very distant galaxies because as we look out into distance space, light from very distant galaxies has taken millions, sometimes billions of years to come. To us, and as it's traveling through expanding space, that light loses some of its energy, it gets shifted into what we call the reddened part of the spectrum, we get red shifted. Because it's stretched the wavelength of light, we can think of it as being stretched as they pass through expanding space to get to our telescope. And so some of those galaxies even though the light started its trip as blue eight from stars and ends up being infrared light when we receive it here, Hubble can see some of those very distant galaxies, which we're seeing as they were very far back in time when they were just infant galaxies. But some of those galaxies that light is redshift, and even beyond what Hubble can see in this new Webb Space Telescope will see infrared light much farther into the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum than Hubble can see. So the Webb telescope will be able to see galaxies even earlier in the history of our universe, when they were just starting to form. And that will complement the kinds of galaxies and the kinds of information that Hubble sees for us. So, you know, we talked about the universe being about 13 point 8 billion years old, which we can glean from various different types of information about the universe. We're now seeing galaxies as they were forming for Well, within that first point, eight of the 13 point 8 billion year history of the universe, we're really seeing the universe at when it was basically in its childhood, and the Webb telescope will show us proto galaxies, the very first generations of stars and gas kind of coalescing as gravity holds it together in the very first few 100,200,000,000 years of the universe after its beginning, so we're excited about that closer to home, the Webb telescope will also see into that deeper into that infrared part of the spectrum that allows us to see deeper into these nurseries of interstellar gas in our own galaxy, where stars are forming and planets are forming and disks around those stars. And to gather the Hubble Telescope, which we anticipate will keep working for quite a few more years, and the Webb telescope will provide complimentary information. For example, when we look at star forming regions, the Hubble Telescope will tell us something about emission in visible light and ultraviolet light. Webb Telescope will give us the infrared part that gives us a lot more information about what those baby stars are like as they form. And even more exciting, we're now we're now discovering that there are planets around other stars we call those exoplanets because they're outside our solar system. We can study something about their atmospheres and in their composition of those atmospheres. Hubble tells us something about the atoms and molecules that emit their light and visible wavelengths and in ultraviolet wavelengths. The Webb telescope gives us information from molecules in these exoplanet atmospheres that emit in infrared wavelengths. So then we can get a whole spectrum of information, we can know whether some of these exoplanets have water vapor, whether they have oxygen, have other kinds of things that we really want to know about exoplanets, and what they're like. So, complimentary science is the name of the game as we look forward to the James Webb Space Telescope, and we think about how it will work in complement to the Hubble Space Telescope in the coming years.   Zack Jackson 28:56 I bet you blew my mind in about seven different times in the past couple of years. So I'm not entirely sure where to go with the fact that you can point to telescope towards an exoplanet and look at the way that light passes through the tiny sliver of an atmosphere and be able to then tell what that atmosphere is made out of. That blows my mind.   Jennifer Wiseman 29:32 Well, the Hubble Space Telescope was actually the pioneer of this method of studying exoplanets. To study exoplanets, you have to be kind of like a detective because you have to use indirect methods to detect them in the first place, and even to study much about them. I mean, we would all like to simply point a camera at another planet, outside our solar system and take a nice picture But these things are really small. They are tiny objects orbiting bright things we call stars, and they get lost in the glare of the star. So astronomers have to use indirect methods to detect them to detect exoplanets. The first ones were detected not by seeing the planet, but by seeing how the star it was orbiting would wobble in its orbit. And that's because there's a gravitational mutual tug between a planet and its parent star. So even if you can't see the planet, you can see the star wobbling a little bit in its position as the planet orbits around, and they're both actually orbiting what's called the center of mass between the two. So the first exoplanets were detected by noticing stars periodically wobbling in their position, and determining from that what mass of planet, we would need to create that much of a wobble. And then the idea of transiting exoplanets was explored. That is certain planets happened to orbit their parent star in a plane that's along our line of sight as we're looking toward that star. And that means every time the planet passes in front of its parent star, it blocks out a little bit of that star light from our view. So even if we can't see the planet, we can see the starlight dimming just a little bit periodically as the planet orbits in front of it. Those transit observations were used by the Kepler space telescope, to discover hundreds of new exoplanet candidates. In fact, we have 1000s of them of systems simply by looking at the parent star and seeing them dim periodically and then doing follow up observations with other telescopes to really confirm whether or not what's causing that is, is an exoplanet. They have Hubble Telescope has taken this one step farther, which is using transits to, to study the composition of the atmospheres of some of these exoplanets. So when a planet passes in front of its parent star, not only does it block out some of the starlight, but some of the starlight passes through that outer rim of the planet's atmosphere along the outer limb on its way to as it passes through. And that atmosphere, what depending on what's in the planet's atmosphere will absorb some of that light. If there are molecules and atoms in the atmosphere, it will absorb light at very certain colors or frequencies. So a spectroscopy just can take that light and spread it out into its constituent colors, kind of like using a prism. And you can see the very particular color band where light is missing because atoms or molecules in that exoplanet atmosphere have absorbed it. And so we have, we have instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope, that are what we call spectrograph. They don't take the pretty pictures, they simply take the light and spread it out into its constituent frequencies or colors, like a prism and see where there are very particular color bands missing. And that pattern tells us what's been munched out, and that tells us what kinds of atoms or molecules are in the exoplanet atmosphere. So Hubble was the first observatory to be used to determine the composition of an exoplanet atmosphere. And now this has grown into a huge astronomical industry, if you will, of using telescopes, Hubble and other telescopes to do spectroscopic analysis of the atmospheres of exoplanets to learn something about their composition. And here, we're excited about this new webb space telescope that's going to do that as well. But in the far infrared in the sorry, in the mid infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, where we can do we can determine even more molecules and kinds of diagnostics that tell us more about what's in these exoplanet atmospheres. We want to know whether planets outside of our solar system are similar or different to planets inside our solar system. And of course, we'd like to know if any of them are habitable for life. We don't yet have the technology sadly to visit planets that are outside our solar system and take samples of their atmospheres or their their dirt if they have dirt or things like that, but we can observe them remotely and so that is what we're trying to perfect are these techniques of taking remote information Like the spectrum of light from an exoplanet atmosphere, and determining from that, what's in that atmosphere. And then from there we can discern whether or not there might be habitability for life. Like we know we need water for life as we know it. So could there be water on one of these exoplanets, or even signs of biological activity, we know that if we looked at Planet Earth from a distance, we would see oxygen in the atmosphere. And that's evidence of, of the work of plant life on our Earth's surface, generating oxygen, this kind of, of process photosynthesis tells us that there's an ongoing biological community, if you will, on planet Earth, otherwise, all the oxygen in the atmosphere would disappear through reactions, but the fact that we have continuing refreshed oxygen tells us that there's biological activity on our planet. If we saw oxygen, as well as other indicators in the atmospheres of other planets, that would be a clue that there might be biological activity there. So we're taking steps the Webb telescope will give us more information than Hubble and then future telescopes beyond Webb will be able to discern whether there are earth like planets with truly Earth light compositions in their atmospheres in in star systems around our galactic neighborhood. So the web is the next step in a whole series of future telescopes that astronomers are planning.   Ian Binns 36:39 That's exciting. Yeah. And I, and doing a little bit of research on James Webb and comparing it to the Hubble and and, you know, I've always been a huge fan of the Hubble Space Telescope and you know, have little models of it. Growing up when you know, I'm a huge LEGO fan, when Lego released the new space shuttle model. In the spring, the one that had Hubble with it was really exotic, so I could kind of build the space shuttle and Hubble. And so but doing those comparisons, I then saw just now the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, that's in production, I guess, right? And,   Jennifer Wiseman 37:22 yes, so So the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope is named after you guessed it, Nancy Grace Roman, who was just a phenomenal pioneer in the history of NASA's foray into space astronomy, she was the first chief astronomer at NASA headquarters. And back in the 1970s, she was the one who advocated the idea of NASA building a space telescope. Now scientists had been talking about this for even decades about what you could do if you could put a telescope in space, but to actually get it implemented, required someone with a NASA headquarters to champion this idea. And she did, she got it started with a NASA Headquarters back in the 1970s. And that ended up being the Hubble Space Telescope. So she's sometimes referred to as the mother of Hubble. She passed away just recently, but she remained an active interested scientist for all of her life. So this telescope now that's being developed is named in her honor the the Roman space telescope, and it will again complement these other space telescopes, it will complement the Webb Space Telescope, which will launch sooner. And the Hubble Space Telescope, which is already operating, the Roman telescope will be an infrared telescope, you know, like the Webb telescope is, is an infrared Space Telescope. But the difference is that Roman is going to have a much wider field of view, that means it will see a much wider swath of the sky than either Hubble, or the Webb telescope can do. If, if Hubble wants to survey a wide, wider region of the sky, it has to do hundreds of little postage stamp observations and stitch it all together. And we've done that and we've done for example, a Hubble observation of a big part of the disk of the Andromeda Galaxy, which is our nearest big spiral galaxy, and we learned a lot by stitching together little postage stamp observation after observation. This is a project led by Professor Julianne del Canton and her team called the fat program which which is is spelled ph 80. But it's it's Hubble Andromeda Treasury program to look at stars in this nearby galaxy. But it's taken a long time. The Roman telescope can do this wide swath of the sky with just, you know, one exposure because it can see such a wider swath of the sky. And the other thing, the other kind of science that it's really being designed to do is to study the distribution of galaxies. Hubble's really good at looking at an individual galaxy and telling us a lot of information. But if you want to know how hundreds or 1000s of galaxies are distributed around the sky, it takes a long time, my favorite image from Hubble is called the Ultra Deep Field. I don't know if you've seen it. But it was a product of just pointing Hubble in one direction, the sky and collecting faint light over many days. And the product is this collection of little blotches of light that you might think are stars, but each one of them is actually another galaxy like like like or unlike the Milky Way each one that can contain billions of stars. And so if you imagine that extrapolated over the entire sky, you get a sense of how rich our universe is. But as wonderful as that deep field is, and you can see 1000s of galaxies, you can't get a sense of how galaxies are really distributed across wider swaths of the sky because it is a small field of view. The Roman telescope, which should be launched later, this decade, will have a wide field of view that can see how the patterns of galaxies have taken shape. Throughout cosmic history. We know that galaxies are distributed in more of a honeycomb fashion, there are regions where there aren't many galaxies, we call them, voids, voids. And then there are regions where there are kind of quite a few galaxies collected together. We know now that throughout the billions of years of cosmic history, there's been kind of a tug of war between gravity, which is trying to pull things together. And that's creating galaxies and even clusters of galaxies that are held together by their mutual gravitational pool. And something that's pushing things apart, we now know that the universe is not only expanding, but that expansion is getting faster. So something is, is kind of pushing out. And we're calling that dark energy, because we don't really know what it is, it may be some repulsive aspect of gravity. Over time, this tug of war between dark energy pushing things apart, and the matter pulling things together, through what we would call traditional gravitational pull has resulted in the distribution of galaxies that we now have today, we would like to understand that better. And the Roman Space Telescope is going to help us see how galaxies have been distributed across space throughout cosmic time. And then the Webb telescope, and the Hubble telescope can help us hone in on very specific galaxies and small clusters to give us more detail. So again, we use different observatories in complement, because they each have their own kind of unique scientific niche of what they can tell us. And together, we get a much better bigger picture of what's going on in the universe. And we also use telescopes on the ground that are getting more and more sophisticated in what they can do to complement telescopes in space. So all of these facilities work in complement.   Ian Binns 43:51 So I'm curious, Jennifer, you know, with Hubble, and you're especially bringing up the Ultra Deep Field. And before that there was so the Hubble Deep Field, and then the hobo Ultra Deep Field, right. And they were both just unbelievable. To look at. I remember when they both came out. And I cannot remember the years, obviously, but I do remember, I think the Hubble are the first one I was able to use and I was a high school science teacher. But it was just unbelievable to look at these things. Will there be with the James Webb Space Telescope? For example? Will we is there will there be an effort to kind of point it in the same direction? You know, the Hubble has been pointing out and look at either the same areas that Hubble's looked at to see what else we could get from that location. And then also to Will there be something kind of like the Hubble Ultra Deep Field with the James Webb, like, is there going to be do you know, or is that just anything is possible?   Jennifer Wiseman 44:52 Oh, absolutely. I mean, one of the main drivers for the the James Webb Space Telescope was this desire to look at the Deep feels like Hubble has done. But to be able to see galaxies that are even more distant than what Hubble can pick up the these distant galaxies, of course, we're not seeing them as they actually are right this minute, we're seeing them as they were when the light began its track from those galaxies across space, to our telescope. And for some of these galaxies in these deep fields, those galaxies are billions of what we call light years away a light year is a unit of distance is the distance that light travels in a year. So when we see a galaxy that's billions of light years away, we're seeing it as it was billions of years back in time. And as that light has traveled across space to get to our telescope, it's traveled through space that is actually expanding, that creates what we call a red shifting effect, the light that we receive is redder than it was when it started, it's its journey. And sometimes that red shifting goes all the way into the infrared part of the spectrum, even beyond what Hubble can pick up. So for these most distant galaxies, we anticipate that a lot of them are shining most of their light in, in a wavelength that's become shifted into the infrared part of the spectrum that only the Webb telescope will pick up, it will pick up galaxies and see them that that the Hubble Deep fields haven't seen so we anticipate seeing even more galaxies with the Webb telescope than Hubble has seen. And yet Hubble can see galaxies in ways that the web won't be able to see Hubble can see the ultraviolet light from the more nearby galaxies. And we can then put a picture together as how as to how galaxies have changed. Over time, by comparing those early infant galaxies at the Webb telescope, we'll pick up with the galaxies that Hubble can see brightly in ultraviolet light that won't be as bright in the infrared light that Webb can see. And then all those intermediate galaxies that we pick up, the infrared light from the Webb telescope and the visible and ultraviolet light from Hubble, and we can put all that information together to make deep feels like we've never had before. So yes, we're going to see the same deals that Hubble has seen, Webb will look at and pick up more galaxies, and then other deep fields Webb will look at. And we will we're already doing preparatory science with Hubble knowing that we want to use Webb for the things that Webb uniquely can do, and can use it in complement with what Hubble can already do. So we're already doing what we call preparatory observations. With Hubble, that makes sure that we understand everything we can about these different fields of galaxies with Hubble, so that we know just the kinds of things we want to learn with JT VST. And we use that telescope as efficiently as we can, once it gets going. You know, the Webb telescope is anticipated as we record this to be launching in late December. But it'll take several months for it to get out where it will be perched a million miles more and more from Earth. That's a lot farther away than Hubble is, but it's being put that far away from Earth to keep it very cool. So that it can pick up the faintest infrared light from these distant galaxies, and from these closer to home star forming regions. So we won't be getting science images from the web for quite a few months, as it makes this trek out into a much more distant part of space than the Hubble telescope. So we're gonna have to be patient. But I'm looking forward to those first science images coming in, in the in the middle part of 2022. If all goes well,   Zack Jackson 48:57 so when we do start to get those images, wow, if they're in the infrared, what will they look like to us humans? Will they have to be artificially colored? Or?   Jennifer Wiseman 49:09 Yes, so so the the Webb telescope will see red light that we can see. But then beyond read into the infrared that we cannot see. And the Hubble itself also sees Light We Cannot See. So Hubble picks up visible light that we can see. But Hubble's picks up ultraviolet light that we can't see and also near infrared light that we cannot see. So already with Hubble images, we have to give them colors that our eyes can see so that we can have a picture to look at. So for Hubble images, if you read carefully, it will tell you whether what you're seeing is visible light or if it's for example, near infrared light, it will be given a red hue so that you can see that part of the spectrum showing up In in the eyes, your colors your eyes can see, we usually label the things on Hubble images. So you know exactly what the color coding is. The Webb telescope images will be likewise sort of translated into colors that we can see in pictures and photographs so that the part of the infrared spectrum that is closer to visible light will be colored, a little less red, maybe even blue. And the part of the infrared spectrum that the web will pick up that's deeper into the infrared part of the spectrum will be colored, very red. And so you'll you'll see probably a, a, a legend that, you know, next to these James Webb images that tell you the range of colors that it's actually picking up and what that has been translated to in the colors that have been put into the image, it's, it's not just any color goes these, usually what happens is you try to make the color range that's on the image as close to the span of color as the actual information is, but just transferred over into a band that our eyes can see. So yes, you have to do something, or else you couldn't see it, with our eyes looking at a picture, because we can't see infrared light. And the same is already true with Hubble images that go beyond just the visible light of the spectrum.   Ian Binns 51:35 I'm just in awe. It's just, I've always loved astronomy, and you know, it's something that I've always just been passionate about. What is it that you're most excited about? And I'm sorry, I just you know, in listening to you talk about it, you may have talked some already. But with this, the Webb Space Telescope, the Nancy Grace, Roman, and telescope and all these different ones that are coming, what is it that you're most excited about with these things?   Jennifer Wiseman 52:06 I think I'm most excited about what you might call two extremes of the spacial scale of the Universe. With these new telescopes, like the the Webb Space Telescope, and then later the Roman Space Telescope. I'm excited about getting even a better understanding of how the universe we live in has become hospitable over billions of years for life, we can actually, you know, look at the earliest galaxies and compare them to galaxies, like our own Milky Way and intermediate time galaxies as well. And we can see how they've changed over these billions of years of time, we can't follow an individual galaxy as it changed. But we can look at the whole population at these different epochs of time. And we can tell that galaxies have merged together and become bigger over time we think our own Milky Way is the project product of mergers. And we can tell that stars have come and gone in these galaxies, massive stars don't live that long. And so they they produce heavier elements that we need four planets in life. As they shine, they, they they go through a process, a process called Fusion that creates heavier elements. And then when the massive stars become unstable, and run out of fuel, they explode and disperse that material into these interstellar clouds where the next generations of stars form. So we know there's been several generations of stars building upon prior generations. And all that process does is to create heavier elements that enable things like planets to form around star. So in our own galaxy, when stars are still forming, we see them forming with discs of dusty debris and planets forming around them. We know that that's only possible because of previous generations of stars in the galaxy that have created heavier elements. So as as we look at this process of the whole universe, the whole cosmos becoming more hospitable to life over eons of time, and that fascinates me and I'm excited with these new telescopes to get a greater sense of how that process has worked. And that personally feeds my, my faith, my sense of offer, how our universe has been endowed with what we need for for life and eventually the ability to have these kinds of conversations to exist and to think about our purpose and our existence and to contemplate on greater meaning. So that excites me and then much closer to home. I really am excited about observations within our solar system, I like the idea that we, with these new telescopes can also study details about planets and moons in our own solar system. And also that we're sending probes, you know, the the kind of space exploration that got me excited in astronomy in the first place. Where are these probes that humans have constructed and sent out to send back images of other planets and their moons in our solar system, I still think that's the the one of the greatest things humans have done and can do, if we put our heads together and do constructive international cooperations. And so I'm excited about probes that will go to places like Europa in our own solar system, in the coming years, that's an ice covered moon that we know has water ocean underneath, I'd like to know what what that water is like, you know, and there are missions that are already sampling the region around Jupiter, and have probed the environment of Saturn. These are things that excite me. And so I'm looking forward also to probe and telescope studies of our own solar system in the coming years. That's our own backyard. And we can learn a lot about even our own planet, by studying our sister planets in our own solar system. So those are the things I'm most excited about.   Zack Jackson 56:29 Do you think we're going to find life on Venus?   Jennifer Wiseman 56:33 Venus is harsh. Venus is is hot, and you know, really inhospitable to life as we know it. Now you can say, well, what if there's life, that's not as we know it? But, you know, we've all watched a lot of science fiction. But the trouble is, we have to know how to identify life, what is life? And so we have to start with what we know, which is life, even in the most extreme conditions on planet Earth. And, you know, what, what are they? The conditions, even the most extreme ones that in which life can thrive? There's a whole field called astrobiology right? Now, that's, that's a new field. But it's a very vibrant field where scientists are trying to understand what are the even the extreme conditions in which life can exist in our own planet Earth? And then, how would that translate to environments in space, either in interstellar space or on other planets or other star systems? And then how would we identify it as life? You know, that's really the tough question, especially if you can't go someplace physically, you can only observe remotely, how would you know that? That's that there's life there? That's a hard question in the field of astrobiology is trying to address all those questions. One of the things I like about astronomy right now is it's very interdisciplinary. It's not that you know, astronomy is separate from geology, which is separate from physics, which is separate from chemistry. No, all these things are being used together now, including biology to try to understand environments of other star systems and planets. And you know, how these conditions of stellar radiation and geology and atmospheres and chemistry work together and how that might affect even biology. So everything is very interdisciplinary now. And I just encourage people to get excited about space exploration, even if that's not your professional feel, there's so much you can learn and enjoy, even if it's not your occupation. By paying attention online, what's going on Hubble Space Telescope images are all freely available online, you can go to the website nasa.gov/hubble. And learn about it are also the galleries at Hubble site.org. And see any of these amazing images I've been talking about. The other telescopes that are large and space are on the ground also have magnificent websites with images. So you can learn a lot just by paying attention online. And I hope everybody also encourages young people to go into science fields or to realize that science is relevant to all walks of life, not just if you're thinking about becoming professional involved in space, but if you're thinking about just about anything, science is relevant to what you do. Science is relevant to our food to communications, to our health, to our exploration of oceans, and mountains, even on this planet, so I hope everybody takes a sense of time to just look around the natural world right around you. be appreciative of the wildlife and the trees and the natural world in a pretty Science as a way of studying that natural world but but keep a sense of wonder and awe. That's how I would encourage everyone to walk away from a program like this.   Zack Jackson 1:00:11 Well, thank you so much for that. Yeah. And   Ian Binns 1:00:13 I'll give a great ending.   Zack Jackson 1:00:14 I'll give a plug for we did an episode on on astrobiology back in January that you all should check out if you haven't had a chance to read Adams book. What is it living with tiny aliens? The image of God and the Anthropocene? Right, am I getting that subtitle? Right? He's not here. He's one of our CO hosts. He's not with us today to plug his own book. But thank you so much for the the wonder the all the inspirations hope. There's a lot to get excited about. Yeah, thank you.   Jennifer Wiseman 1:00:45 My pleasure. I'm glad you're interested in and I'm sure there'll be many more conversations to come have

It's taken years, billions of dollars and a lot of hope, but the James Webb Space Telescope is finally scheduled to take off. The telescope will be able to see further in space and time than anything ever built, including the Hubble Space Telescope it's replacing. For more information, we hear from Begoña Vila, the systems lead at NASA for the Fine Guidance Sensor and the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph; and Natasha Batalha from NASA's Planetary Systems Branch.

With the launch of the incredible James Webb Space Telescope just hours away, we thought it a good time to republish our conversation with Chris Gunn, the official NASA photographer for this project. The original episode was published almost two years ago when the construction of the telescope was nearing completion. If you are intereted in space research and imaging, also check our episode from 2016 with a chief imaging expert from the Hubble Space Telescope mission. Imagine the privilege of being present at the creation of one of the “wonders of the world,” and then imagine being asked to document the magnitude—and the details—of that creation. Our guest on today's episode of the B&H Photography Podcast has just that privilege and that responsibility and, as he puts it, this telescope may “change the way we understand our universe.” Chris Gunn has been a NASA contract photographer for almost twenty years but, for the past ten, he has dedicated himself to the James Webb Space Telescope and documenting the construction and eventual launch of this spacecraft, which will replace the Hubble as NASA's most powerful telescope. We speak with Gunn about all aspects of his job and, specifically, about the gorgeous medium format images he creates that are made available to the public. Gunn is responsible for documenting the construction process, which includes portraits of scientists, as well as macro shots of screws, and he relates how he has “taken the extra step” to evolve as a photographer, incorporating medium format photography and detailed setups. Gunn must be prepared to shoot any style of photo and he discusses his daily responsibilities, how his gear has evolved over time, the lighting he chooses, and his interaction with the hundreds and technicians and scientists he works with regularly. We also discuss marketing yourself as a photographer and the specific challenges that make his job like no other, including working in giant “clean rooms,” accepting that your work is immediately in the public domain, and incorporating the aesthetics from science-fiction films. Sitting in on this recording is our own member of the B&H Space Force, writer Todd Vorenkamp. Join us for this fascinating episode in which we learn about this incredible spacecraft and the work that goes into documenting its creation and check out our 2016 episode, in which we speak with the imaging scientists from the Hubble Telescope mission. Guest: Chris Gunn Above photograph © Chris Gunn

In this episode: We meet Dr. Steven Hawley, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas, and former NASA astronaut who's flown on five Space Shuttle missions. In those missions, Hawley had major roles in the deployment and later upkeep of the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory.   In our conversation, Dr. Hawley discusses the first telescope he owned, the 1991 Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission, his role in its deployment, why it initially didn't operate as intended, what it's told us about our universe, his later role in the launch of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and his thoughts on the upcoming launch of the James Webb Space Telescope.   In describing his first space mission deploying the bus-sized Hubble in 1991, Hawley says, “My job was to operate the arm to grasp the telescope, lift it out of the payload bay, and release it. Well, that sounds simple enough on the surface. It actually was quite complicated, and there were a lot of ‘what-ifs' that we had to think about.”   Introductory and closing music: Paint the Sky by Hans Atom © Copyright 2015, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/hansatom/50718 Ft: Miss Judged

NGC 7457 was one of the first things imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, which meant that the images of it were relatively blurry, but this is not the most interesting fact about this lenticular galaxy.

The universe is not just expanding; it's accelerating. Supermassive black holes are hunkered down at the center of our galaxy and just about every other galaxy, too. We talk about these and other big discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, now in orbit for over 30 years. But two new next-generation telescopes will soon be joining Hubble: the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. Hear what cosmic puzzles they'll address. Plus, life in a clean room while wearing a coverall “bunny suit”; what it takes to assemble a telescope. Guests: Meg Urry – Professor of physics and astronomy, Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University John Grunsfeld – Former NASA Associate Administrator, and astronaut Kenneth Harris – Senior Project Engineer, Aerospace Corporation Originally aired September 21, 2020 Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact sales@advertisecast.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science. You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The James Webb Space Telescope will soon be placed atop an Ariane 5 rocket for its launch no earlier than December 22nd. NASA says it is 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope. On the Science Edition of Press Conference USA, Eric Smith, Program Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope Program at NASA joins Rick Pantaleo for a preview of this powerful new astronomical tool.

Our awareness is rather tethered to the material plane. Our minds are captivated by countless thoughts, worries, anxieties, memories, impressions, and attachments. For there to be any hope for us to make spiritual progress during this lifetime, this time through, we must call upon a Hidden Power, and discover the Grace of the Divine, in order to catapult our consciousness right out of this universe into the vast Heavenly Realms Beyond. As it says in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene: "I left the world with the aid of Another World; a design was erased by virtue of a Higher Design. Henceforth I travel toward Repose, where time rests in the Eternity of Time; I go now into Silence." Meister Eckhart: "If the soul is to see God, then it must see no temporal thing, for as long as the soul is conscious of time or space, or of an idea, it cannot know God." Even as the Hubble Space Telescope had to be placed above the turbulence and distortion of earth's atmosphere in order to see clearly into the cosmos, so too the mystic needs to rise above body-consciousness and mind to know that Other Realm we also are part of as spiritual beings. The awareness or attention of the soul (surat) must become untethered and free from the temporal world of the five senses, mental images and memories during meditation practice in order to experience that Other Realm of Spirit that we inhabit. Not many are willing to look through this particular "lens" of the Third or Single Eye and see for themselves, taking the time to do this and enter into the silence and stillness beyond the physical, dream, and mental states and, "Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) 

After slipping past Venus and Saturn the last couple of evenings, the Moon hangs out with one more planetary companion the next couple of nights: Jupiter, the giant of the solar system. The brilliant planet stands above the Moon as night falls tonight, and to the right of the Moon tomorrow night. Jupiter's most obvious feature is the Great Red Spot — a giant storm system. It towers high above the surrounding clouds, and it's been around for at least 150 years — and perhaps much longer. Compounds dredged up from deep below the storm color it in shades of red and orange. The Great Red Spot has received a lot of attention in recent years because it's been shrinking. A hundred and fifty years ago, it was between two and three times the diameter of Earth. Today, though, it's only about one-and-a-quarter times the size of Earth — about 10,000 miles across. A recent study found that the storm's winds are changing, too. Hubble Space Telescope keeps a regular eye on Jupiter. Scientists use it to track the winds across the planet — especially in the Great Red Spot. They found that, from 2009 to 2020, the wind at the rim of the storm sped up by about eight percent. It blows at a brisk 400 miles per hour — more than twice the speed of the most powerful hurricane ever recorded on Earth. On the other hand, winds at the center of the storm have slowed down — adding to the intrigue about this amazing storm.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

On today's episode: Can deep red light improve your vision? Fungi are adapting to infect humans! And we marvel at the incredible legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope All that and more today on All Around Science. LINKS: [ARTICLE] Morning exposure to deep red light improves declining eyesight [ARTICLE] It's time to fear the fungi THEME MUSIC by Andrew Allen https://twitter.com/KEYSwithSOUL http://andrewallenmusic.com

In 30 million years or so, the Milky Way Galaxy may stage a spectacular fireworks display. It could give birth to hundreds of thousands of stars in just a few million years — the result of a massive collision. Smith's Cloud is falling toward the Milky Way's disk. The cloud is about 10,000 light-years long. To get a sense of how big that is, consider that it spans about 20 times the width of the full Moon as seen from Earth, even though it's maybe 40,000 light-years away. Astronomers are still trying to figure out where the cloud came from. A study a few years ago used Hubble Space Telescope to examine its chemistry. From that, scientists suggested that it came from the outer regions of the Milky Way's disk — perhaps blasted away by a cluster of exploding stars about 70 million years ago. Today, it's falling back toward the disk — toward the outer edge of the Perseus spiral arm. When it hits, it'll slam into other clouds of gas and dust. That will squeeze all the clouds, causing them to split into clumps. The clumps then will collapse to form new stars — the equivalent of perhaps a million stars the mass of the Sun. For now, Smith's Cloud is in the constellation Aquila, the eagle, which is low in the west-southwest at nightfall. Its brightest star, Altair, marks the left point of the bright Summer Triangle. Smith's Cloud is so cold and dark that it's visible only to radio telescopes — to the lower left of Altair.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 137*The Magellanic stream closer than previously thoughtA new study suggests the Magellanic stream is five times closer to the Milky Way galaxy than previously thought. The discovery means it will start colliding with the Milky Way far sooner than expected.*New Zealand's Rocket Lab launches its 22nd Electron missionRocket Lab has successfully launched another two satellites into orbit aboard its Electron rocket.*There's been an incident involving the James Webb space telescopeOops is not something you want to hear when moving a ten-billion-dollar space telescope. But that's what's just happened at the European Space Agency's Kourou Space Port in French Guyana as technicians were attempting to attach the new James Webb Space Telescope to its launch vehicle adapter on the upper stage of the Ariane 5 rocket.*NASA continues work to retore the Hubble Space TelescopeNASA has brought the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument back on line as it continues efforts to fix the Hubble Space Telescope after it suddenly went into safe mode in October.*Another Chinese spy satellite launchedAnother week and the launch of another Chinese Earth reconnaissance satellite bringing Beijing's total to over 148 surveillance spacecraft. *The Science ReportDeforestation in the Amazon rainforest has increased by a devastating 22 percent.A new study finds some Pacific Ocean rock fishes can live for more than 200 years.How does coffee affect your heart?Alex on Tech: stupid passwords.For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen to. Thank you…To become a SpaceTime supporter and unlock commercial free editions of the show, gain early access and bonus content, please visit https://bitesz.supercast.com/ . Premium version now available via Spotify and Apple Podcasts.To listen to SpaceTime on your favorite App automatically: https://link.chtbl.com/spacetime https://spacetimewithstuartgary.comhttps://bitesz.com

To listen to SpaceTime on your favorite App automatically: https://link.chtbl.com/spacetime The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 135*NASA's Dragonfly mission to TitanDragonfly is a NASA mission to explore the chemistry and habitability of Saturn's largest moon, Titan.*Hubble Space Telescope back onlineNASA's Earth orbiting Hubble Space Telescope is partially back on line after mission managers successfully recovered the observatory's Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument.*Another 53 Starlink satellites launchedSpaceX has launched another 53 Starlink satellites as it continues to expand its broadband internet constellation.*More Chinese spy satellites launchedChina is continuing its spy satellite launch program at a blistering pace with three more Yaogan 35 reconnaissance satellites blasting in to orbit.*The Science ReportNew test for laser ignition nuclear fusion.High speed rail linked to reduction in carbon emissionsPalaeontologists have identified a new species of hadrosaur dinosaur on the Isle of Wight.Skeptic's guide to the scariest horror movies of all time.For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…Your support is needed...SpaceTime is an independently produced podcast (we are not funded by any government grants, big organisations or companies), and we're working towards becoming a completely listener supported show...meaning we can do away with the commercials and sponsors. We figure the time can be much better spent on researching and producing stories for you, rather than having to chase sponsors to help us pay the bills.That's where you come in....help us reach our first 1,000 subscribers...at that level the show becomes financially viable and bills can be paid without us breaking into a sweat every month. Every little bit helps...even if you could contribute just $1 per month. It all adds up.By signing up and becoming a supporter at the $5 or more level, you get immediate access to over 240 commercial-free, double, and triple episode editions of SpaceTime plus extended interview bonus content. You also receive all new episodes on a Monday rather than having to wait the week out. Subscribe via Patreon or Supercast (you get a month's free trial with Supercast to see if it's really for you or not)....and share in the rewards. Details at Patreon www.patreon.com/spacetimewithstuartgary or Supercast - https://bitesznetwork.supercast.tech/ Details at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com or www.bitesz.com If you've enjoyed this podcast, you may love our sister show Space Nuts...just visit https://spacenuts.io for podcast details.New: Listen via @GoodPods ...IOS and Android

Malaria, a disease that infects hundreds of millions of people and kills hundreds of thousands each year. It is caused after a plasmodium parasite is passed from a blood-feeding mosquito into a human host. Subject to much research over hundreds of years, of both host and parasite, one of the evolutionary mysteries has been why the plasmodium so prospers in the mosquito populations in infected areas. Why haven't mosquitoes' immune systems learned to fight back for example? In short, what's in it for the mozzies? Ann Carr, working with Laurence Zwiebel at Vanderbuilt University, reports in the journal Nature Scientific Reports how they managed to discover a mutual symbiotic relationship between the plasmodium and the mosquito. Using advanced sequencing technology they discovered that the infected insects can live longer, and have enhanced sensing (olfaction) and egg positioning than their uninfected brethren. This, in turn, could help them finds meals better, bestowing higher numbers of infection opportunities for the parasite, and benefitting both. NASA this week successfully launched its DART mission, which will next year attempt to nudge an asteroid in its orbit by smashing a mass into it. Could this method allow future humans, endangered by an impending collision push an asteroid out of the way to save the planet? It is billed as human's first ever “earth-defence mission”, but as relieved-sounding mission leads Nancy Chabot and Andy Rivkin of Johns Hopkins University told the BBC, it is perhaps finally time to stop talking about these sorts of things and have a go. Less relieved perhaps are astronomers around the world, as the James Webb Space Telescope team announce a further small delay to its launch to sometime after December 22nd. The BBC's John Amos a few weeks ago stood in the presence of the telescope before it was coupled to the launch vehicle, and spoke with ESA's Peter Jensen about its cost and complexity. BBC Inside Science is planning a special episode devoted to the instrument to accompany the launch of this successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Watch, as they say, this space... And finally an insight perhaps into the origin of words and language. Apart from onomatopoeia, where a word can sound like the noise of a noise-making thing, can a word sound like other properties, such as for example its shape? In the late 1920s psychologists found that different people would match certain made-up words with the same abstract shapes. This “Bouba/ Kiki” effect has been studied since, where the word “Bouba” is associated with rounded blobby shapes, and “Kiki” with spikier, angular forms. But there wasn't so much evidence whether or not the effect worked across different languages or different written alphabets, until now. Aleksandra Ćwiek of Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft in Berlin tells Gaia of her international study (published in Royal Society Phil. Trans. B) looking at the effect in 25 different languages and cultures. The effect is robust across the different writing systems and locations, so the link is not simply about the shape of a letter b or letter k when written in a latinate alphabet, but could allude to something much deeper. Presented by Gaia Vince Produced by Alex Mansfield Assistant Producer, Emily Bird Made in Association with The Open University.

The Hubble Space Telescope certainly gave us some spectacular images over the last decade or so, however, the telescope is showing its age. A replacement telescope has been in development for sometime now… and will soon be lifting off into the sky's. Let's explore more about the James Webb Space Telescope today on WeatherJazz® Episode #263. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/andrebernier/support

In the coming weeks, NASA will launch the James Webb Space Telescope—the most powerful telescope ever put into space. This $10 billion technical marvel is a complex and massive spacecraft—think of something roughly the size of a tennis court—that scientists and engineers have been working on for decades to explore the deepest reaches of our universe.Many experts view Webb as the rightful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990 into a low orbit around Earth. When Hubble didn't work properly, NASA could send astronauts up in a space shuttle to repair it.But here's the tricky part: Webb isn't going into low Earth orbit. Instead, it will be placed into an orbit about a million miles away from Earth, where there's no way to reach it after launch. It needs to work right the first time.Do you ever wonder what it was like to help build the James Webb Space Telescope?Stephanie Hernandez is a systems engineer at Northrop Grumman working on the James Webb Space Telescope. She is part of the team that tests and verifies literally thousands of things on the telescope while it's on the ground first, to make sure that it will work in space later. Stephanie gave us a peek behind the scenes of what it's like to work on a such a technologically complex and high-stakes spacecraft, how she got started at Northrop Grumman as a summer intern, and what this whole experience means to her as a first-generation college student. Celebrate the launch of NASA's newest premiere space science observatory with more virtual activities and events from the California Science Center. Have a question you've been wondering about? Send an email or voice recording to everwonder@californiasciencecenter.org to tell us what you'd like to hear in future episodes.Follow us on Twitter (@casciencecenter), Instagram (@californiasciencecenter), and Facebook (@californiasciencecenter).Support the show (https://CaliforniaScienceCenter.org/support)

Spineless sea squirts shed light on vertebrate evolution, and an iodine-fuelled engine powering a satellite in space.In this episode:00:45 A story of sea squirts, ancient vertebrates and missing genesWhen a PhD student set out to study the developmental pathways of a strange sea creature, he hoped to shed light on the origins of vertebrate animals. Instead, researchers found themselves investigating a strange case of missing genes. We hear why gene loss could be a more significant factor in evolutionary processes than was previously thought.Research article: Ferrández-Roldán et al.08:17 Research HighlightsThe unusual crystal that gives a beetle its glittering green sheen, and the genetics of a fish's 200 year lifespan.Research Highlight: Weird crystal makes beetle a living jewelResearch Highlight: Some of Earth's longest-lived fish show how to reach extreme ages10:43 An iodine-fuelled engine for satellitesIn space, many satellites use xenon-fuelled ‘electric propulsion systems' to maneuver. However, xenon is rare and requires high-pressure storage systems, so researchers have been working to develop alternative fuels. This week, a team publish details of the first in-space test of an iodine-powered electric propulsion system, which they say has many advantages over xenon systems.Research article: Rafalskyi et al16:37 Briefing ChatWe discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, issues aboard the Hubble Space Telescope, and what the discovery of a theorised mineral reveals about processes deep within the Earth.Wired: NASA Tries to Save Hubble, AgainNature: Diamond delivers long-sought mineral from the deep EarthSubscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"The James Webb Space Telescope was specifically designed to see the first stars and galaxies that were formed in the universe." — John M. Grunsfeld Back to our SCIENCE SH*T this week! J discusses the drama queen herself, the James Webb Space Telescope! J. Daae goes solo this episode and talks about what is the James Webb Space Telescope, how does it compare to the Hubble Space Telescope, why is it so important to science and when the alleged launch date will be. Mahalo!! —————————————————— Did we mention we made a Spotify Playlist? Check it out! New playlist every month! FOLLOW US on INSTAGRAM @HomoInTraining Find us on Facebook! LIKE & FOLLOW our page! EMAIL us if you love mushrooms: HomoInTrainingPodcast@gmail.com —————————————————— Music Credit: Purple Planet - Time to Dream —————————————————— --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/homointraining/message

The Hubble Constant tells us how fast the universe is expanding. However, different methods of measuring the Hubble Constant give different results. In this podcast, NOIRLab's John Blakeslee describes data his team has collected to help resolve this discrepancy.  Bio: Rob Sparks is in the Communications, Education and Engagement group at NSF's NOIRLab. John Blakeslee is an Astronomer at NSF's NOIRLab studying galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the expansion of the universe. He completed his PhD at MIT, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the CalTech. Dr Blakeslee has worked as a Research Scientist with the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera project at Johns Hopkins University, a faculty member at Washington State University, a Staff Astronomer with the Canadian National Research Council in Victoria, British Columbia, and the Chief Scientist of Gemini Observatory. In addition to doing research, he now serves as the Head of Science Staff for Observatory Support at NOIRLab.   Links: https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2123/ https://noirlab.edu/public/blog/hubble-constant-result/ NOIRLab social media channels can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/NOIRLabAstro https://twitter.com/NOIRLabAstro https://www.instagram.com/noirlabastro/ https://www.youtube.com/noirlabastro   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

Quick, switch over to Vodacast to see the pictures I talk about in the episode! We all lose things -- keys, wallets, patience -- but how do you lose an entire city?  Hear the stories of three American towns built in a hurry but kept off the map, secure Soviet enclaves known by their post codes, ancient cities found by modern technology, and the ingenious engineering of underground dwellings. YBOF Book; Audiobook (basically everywhere but Audible); Merch Reach out and touch Moxie on Facebook, Twitter,  or Instagram. Hang out with your fellow Brainiacs. Support the show Music by Kevin MacLeod, .   Links to all the research resources are on our website.    In the opal-mining region of South Australia, lies the town of Coober Peedy.  You're welcome to visit, but don't expect to see much.  There aren't many buildings, though the landscape is dotted with ventilation shafts.  There's almost no movement at all.  So if the town is here, where are its 3500 residents?  Look down.  My name's Moxie and this is your brain on facts.   In 1943, three ordinary-looking US cities were constructed at record speed, but left off all maps.  Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Richland, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico held laboratories and sprawling industrial plants, as well as residential neighborhoods, schools, churches, and stores.  The three cities had a combined population of more than 125,000 and one extraordinary purpose: to create nuclear weapons as part of the Manhattan project, the U.S. military's initiative to develop nuclear weapons.     Their design was driven by unique considerations, such as including buffer zones for radiation leaks or explosions. In each case, there were natural features, topographical features, that were considered to be favorable. In all three cases, they were somewhat remote—in the case of Richland and Los Alamos, very remote—which offered a more secure environment, of course. But also, in the event of a disaster, an explosion or a radiation leak, that would also minimize the potential exposure of people outside the project to any sort of radiation danger.  The sites were  selected far from one another in case German or Japanese bombers somehow managed to penetrate that far into the United States, it would be harder for them in a single bombing run to take out more than one facility.  K-25 plant at Oak Ridge, which was where they enriched uranium using the gaseous diffusion method, was the largest building in the world under a single roof, spanning more than 40 acres.    Before you being any building project, you have to clear the site of things like trees, high spots, people. In 1942, the government approached the families that lived near the Clinch river in Tennessee, some of whom had farmed there for generations, and kicked them out, telling them the land was needed for a “demolition range,” so as to scare off hold-outs with the threat of adjacent explosions.  The town scaled up fast.   Oak Ridge was initially conceived as a town for 13,000 people but grew to 75,000 by the end of the war, the biggest of the secret cities. The laboratories took up most of the space, but rather than constructing basic dormitories for employees, the architects and designers settled on a suburban vision.  To pull this off quickly and secretly, the architects relied on prefabricated housing, in some cases, a house might come in two halves on the back of a truck to be assembled on-site. These were called “alphabet houses;” A houses were the most modest (read: tiny), while D houses included dining rooms.  Housing was assigned based on seniority, though allowances were sometimes made for large families.     And race.  This was the early 40's, after all.  The secret suburbs for factories manufacturing megadeaths were segregated by design.  Their houses were called “hutments,” little more than plywood frames without indoor plumbing, insulation or glass in the windows.  Though two of the first public schools in the south to be desegregated were in Oak Ridge. They even threatened to secede from Tennessee in order to desegregate, so at least there's that.  There were white families in the hutments as well and all of the residents of that lower-class neighborhood were under more surveillance and stricter rules than the families in better housing.  Married couples may be forbidden to live together.  By the end of the war, most of the white families had been moved out of the hutments and but many of the African American families continued to live in the basic dwellings until the early 1950s.    These towns didn't appear on any official maps, and visitors were screened by guards posted at the entrances.  Anyone over 12 had to have official ID.  Firearms, cameras, and even binoculars were prohibited.  Billboards were installed all over town to remind workers to keep their mouths shut about their work, even though most workers knew very little about the project's true scope.  For example, you job may be to watch a gauge for eight hours and flip a switch if it goes to high.  You don't know what you're measuring or what the machine is doing.  All you've been told is to flip the switch when the needle hits a certain number.  In Los Alamos and Richland, the entire neighborhood may have the same mailing address.  At Oak Ridge, street addresses were designed to be confusing to outsiders. Bus routes might be called X-10 or K-25 while dorms had simple names such as M1.  There were no signs on buildings. The town was full of such ciphers, and even employees didn't know how to decode them all.  The use of words such as “atomic” or “uranium” was taboo lest it tip off the enemy.   When the US dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945, the city's secret was out. Many residents celebrated at this turning point in the war, but not all.  Mary Lowe Michel, a typist in Oak Ridge, is quoted in an exhibit on display now at the National Building Museum in DC: “The night that the news broke that the bombs had been dropped, there was joyous occasions in the streets, hugging and kissing and dancing and live music and singing that went on for hours and hours. But it bothered me to know that I, in my very small way, had participated in such a thing, and I sat in my dorm room and cried.”  All three cities remained part of the military industrial complex, continuing to work on nuclear weapons during the cold war as well as broader scientific research.  Today Oak Ridge is heavily involved in renewable energy, minus the barbed wire fence.   For most of the twentieth century, if the US was doing it, so was the USSR.  We had closed cities to build nuclear weapons, and so did the Soviet Union.  We had three, they had….lots. Like, a lot a lot.  Like, multiple screens on the Wikipedia list.  Where the US began to open its closed cities after the war, the USSR was building more and more, and not just for nuclear weapons.  These closed cities were nicknamed “post boxes,” because they would be named for the nearest non-secret city and the end of their post code; or simply “boxes” for their closed nature. During the two decades following World War II, dozens of closed cities were built around the country. Some were naukogradi (“science cities”) or akademgorodoki (“academic cities”), while others developed military technology and later spacecraft.  The official name was closed administrative-territorial formations or zakrytye administrativno-territorial'nye obrazovaniya, or ZATOs.    The cities were largely built by slave labor from the Gulag prison camps, which at the time accounted for 23% of the non-agricultural labor force in the Soviet Union.  They were guarded like gulags, too - surrounded by barbed wire and guards, with no one was allowed to enter or leave without official authorization.  Many residents did not leave the city once between their arrival and their death.  That being said, the captive residents enjoyed access to housing, food, and health care better than Soviet citizens elsewhere.  While most towns in the Soviet Union were run by local communist party committees, military officials oversaw the secret cities that would eventually be home to over 100,000 people.  Even during construction, officials were ordered to use trusted prisoners only, meaning no Germans, POWs, hard criminals, political prisoners.  Nevertheless, even living alongside Gulag prisoners, residents believed they were making a valuable contribution to their country. Nikolai Rabotnov, a resident of Chelyabinsk-65, remembered, “I was sure that within our barbed labyrinth, I inhaled the air of freedom!”   Arzamas-16, today known by its original name Sarov, was one of the most important sites in the early development of the first Soviet atomic bomb and hydrogen and was roughly the Soviet equivalent of Los Alamos.  Scientists, workers, and their families enjoyed privileged living conditions and were sheltered from difficulties like military service and economic crisis.  Leading researchers were paid a very large salary for those times.  Chelyabinsk-65 or Ozersk was home to a plutonium production plant similar to the American facilities built at Richland.  Located near a collective farm in the southern Ural Mountains, Chelyabinsk-65 was more or less built from nothing, where Arzamas-16 was an existing town that was taken over.  After the basics of the city were completed, early years were very difficult for the residents. The cities lacked basic infrastructure and suffered from high rates of alcoholism and poor living conditions. The Mayak Plutonium Plant dumped nuclear waste in the nearby Techa River, causing a health crisis not only for the residents of Chelyabinsk-65 but for all the villages which ran along it.   Conditions at Chelyabinsk-65/Ozersk would not improve until after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.  You remember that story, it was in our episode For Want of a Nail.  Owing to the plutonium plant, Chelyabinsk-65 is still one of the most polluted places in the world. Some residents refer to it as the “graveyard of the Earth.”  Somehow, though, it's considered a prestigious place to live where.  When the government polled residents after the Cold War had thawed over whether to open the city, they voted to keep it closed.  In fact, half of the nuclear scientists said they would refuse to stay if it was opened.  As one resident explained, “We take pride in the fact that the state trusts us enough to live and work in Ozersk.”   In 1991, the Soviet Union officially disbanded and its fifteen republics became independent, four of which had nuclear weapons deployed on their territories. This was of great concern to the West, as these newly formed nations did not have the financial or technological means to properly store and safeguard these weapons.  With budgets a fraction of what they were in the decades before, the standard of living in the ZATOs quickly declined.  Security went with it, as the soldiers who guarded the ZATOs also saw their wages slashed.   With little prospect of employment and limited security, scientists suddenly had the freedom not only to leave their cities but to leave the country.  Fear quickly spread in the United States that they could help develop nuclear programs in other countries, such as Iran.  In 1991, the Nunn-Lugar Act financed the transportation and dismantlement of the scattered nukes to not only reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world but to provide the scientists with proper employment.  One result of this effort was the International Science and Technology Center in Moscow, which employed many former atomic scientists on non-weapons programs and still exists today.      If you need to hide a city from your enemies, you'd do well to move it underground.  Built in the late 50s in Wiltshire, England, the massive complex, codename Burlington was designed to safely house up to 4,000 central government personnel in the event of a nuclear strike.  In a former Bath stone quarry the city was to be the site of the main Emergency Government War Headquarters, the country's alternative seat of power if the worst happened.  Over 2/3mi/1km in length, and boasting over 60mi/97km  of roads, the underground site was designed to accommodate the Prime Minister, the Cabinet Office, civil servants and an army of domestic support staff.   Blast proof and completely self-sufficient the secret underground site could accommodate up to 4,000 people  in complete isolation from the outside world  for up to three months.  Though it was fortunately never used, the grid of roads and avenues ran between underground hospitals, canteens, kitchens, warehouses of supplies, dormitories, and offices.  The city was also equipped with the second largest telephone exchange in Britain, a BBC studio from which the PM could address the nation and a pneumatic tube system that could relay messages, using compressed air, throughout the complex.  An underground lake and treatment plant could provide all the drinking water needed.  A dozen huge tanks could store the fuel required to keep the generators in the underground power station running for up to three months.  The air within the complex could also be kept at a constant humidity and heated to around 68F/20C degrees.   The complex was kept on standby in case of future nuclear threats to the UK, until 2005, when the underground reservoir was drained, the supplies removed, the fuel tanks were emptied and the skeleton staff of four were dismissed. Some cities were not secret in their heyday, but were lost to time until recently.  In what's being hailed as a “major breakthrough” for Maya archaeology in February 2018, researchers have identified the ruins of more than 60,000 buildings hidden for centuries under the jungles of Guatemala.  Using LiDAR, or Light Detection And Ranging, scholars digitally removed the tree canopy from aerial images of the area, revealing the ruins of a sprawling pre-Columbian civilization that was far more complex and interconnected than most Maya specialists had supposed.   Mounted on a helicopter, the laser continually aims pulses toward the ground below, so many that a large number streak through the spaces between the leaves and branches, and are reflected back to the aircraft and registered by a GPS unit. By calculating the precise distances between the airborne laser and myriad points on the earth's surface, computer software can generate a three-dimensional digital image of what lies below.  To put the density of this jungle into perspective, archaeologists have been searching the area on foot for years, but did not find a single man-made feature.   “LiDAR is revolutionizing archaeology the way the Hubble Space Telescope revolutionized astronomy,” said Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer. “We'll need 100 years to go through all [the data] and really understand what we're seeing.”  The project mapped more than 800 sq mi/2,100 sq km of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in the Petén region of northern Guatemala, producing the largest LiDAR data set ever obtained for archaeological research.  The old school of that held that Mayan civilization existed as scattered city-states, but these findings suggest that Central America supported an advanced civilization that was, with as many as 14 million people at its peak around 1,200 years ago, comparable to sophisticated cultures like ancient Greece or China.  The LiDAR even revealed raised highways connecting urban centers and complex irrigation and agricultural terracing systems.  And that was without the use of the wheel or beasts of burden   Despite standing for millennia, these sites are in danger from looting and environmental degradation.  Guatemala is losing more than 10 percent of its forests annually, and habitat loss has accelerated along its border with Mexico as trespassers burn and clear land for agriculture and human settlement.  “By identifying these sites and helping to understand who these ancient people were, we hope to raise awareness of the value of protecting these places,” Marianne Hernandez, president of the Foundation for Maya Cultural and Natural Heritage.   Lidar has also helped scientists to redraw a settlement located on the outskirts of Johannesburg, South Africa, and it tells the beginnings of a fascinating story.  Scientists from the University of Witwatersrand believe the newly discovered city was occupied in the 15th century by Tswana-speaking people who lived in the northern parts of South Africa.  Many similar Tswana city-states fell during regional wars and forced migration in the 1820s, and there was little oral or physical evidence to prove their existence.  Though archaeologists excavated some ancient ruins in the area in the 1960s, they couldn't comprehend the full extent of the settlement. By using LiDAR technology, the team was able to virtually remove vegetation and recreate images of the surrounding landscape, allowing them to produce aerial views of the monuments and buildings in a way that could not have been imagined a generation ago.    Using these new aerial photographs, they can now estimate that as many as 850 homesteads had once existed in and around the city they've given the temporary designation of SKBR.  It's likely that most homesteads housed several family members, meaning this was a city with a large population.  There are also stone towers outside some homesteads, as high as 8ft2.5m high with bases 16ft/5m wide.  The academics believe these may have been bases for grain bins or even burial markers for important people.  Though the team estimates they are still another decade or two away from fully understanding the city's inhabitants and how the city came to be, and ceased to exist.   Modern technology has also helped us find an ancient city in Cambodia.  Constructed around 1150, the palaces and temples of Angkor Wat were, and still are, the biggest religious complex on Earth, covering an area four times larger than Vatican City.   In the 15th Century, the Khmer kings abandoned their city and moved to the coast.  They built a new city, Phnom Penh, the present-day capital of Cambodia.  Life in Angkor slowly ebbed away.  Everything made of wood rotted away; everything made of stone was reclaimed by the jungle.   An international team, led by the University of Sydney's Dr Damian Evans, was able to map out /370 sq km around Angkor in unprecedented detail in less than two weeks - no mean feat given the density of the jungle.  Rampant illegal logging of valuable hardwoods had stripped away much of the primary forest, allowing dense new undergrowth to fill in the gaps. It was unclear whether the lasers could locate enough holes in the canopy to penetrate to the forest floor.  The prevalence of landmines from Cambodia's civil war are another area where shooting Lidar from a helicopter really shines. The findings were staggering.  The archaeologists found undocumented cityscapes etched on to the forest floor, with remnants of boulevards, reservoirs, ponds, dams, dikes, irrigation canals, agricultural plots, low-density settlement complexes and orderly rows of temples. They were all clustered around what the archaeologists realized must be a royal palace, a vast structure surrounded by a network of earthen dikes—the ninth-century fortress of King Jayavarman II. “To suspect that a city is there, somewhere underneath the forest, and then to see the entire structure revealed with such clarity and precision was extraordinary,” Evans told me. “It was amazing.”     These new discoveries have profoundly transformed our understanding of Angkor, the greatest medieval city on Earth.  Most striking of all was evidence of large-scale hydraulic engineering, the defining signature of the Khmer empire, used to store and distribute seasonal monsoon water using a complex network of huge canals and reservoirs.  Harnessing the monsoon provided food security - and made the ruling elite fantastically rich. For the next three centuries they channelled their wealth into the greatest concentration of temples on Earth.  Angkor was a bustling metropolis at its peak, covering /1,000 sq km; It would be another 700 years before London reached a similar size.     Bonus fact: and not to be a pedant, but “monsoon” refers no to the heavy rains in the rainy season from May to September, but to the strong, sustained winds that bring them.   And that's where we run out of ideas, at least for today.  Some cities are hidden, not for reasons of subterfuge or dereliction, but by necessity.  80% of the world's opal comes from the area of Coober Peedy, but that wealth is nothing to the sun it's going to continue with the Mad Max motif.  It may be 115 degrees F/47C outside, but it's only 74F/23C underground.  When heavy mining equipment was introduced a century ago, people took advantage of it to dug themselves homes, a church, hotels and B&Bs, a museum, casino, a gift shop, and, of course, a pub.  Remember...thanks... Source: http://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/history/laser-scans-reveal-maya-megalopolis-below-guatemalan-jungle.aspx https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/lost-city-cambodia-180958508/ https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29245289 https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/05/inside-the-secret-cities-that-created-the-atomic-bomb/559601/ https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-to-build-secret-nuclear-city https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/may/03/off-the-map-the-secret-cities-behind-the-atom-bomb-manhattan-project https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/soviet-closed-cities https://metro.co.uk/2015/05/28/theres-a-whole-town-in-australia-that-lives-underground-5219091/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2016/09/coober-pedy-opal-mining/ https://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/coober-pedy-underground-homes.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2005/12/14/burlington_nuclear_bunker_feature.shtml https://theculturetrip.com/africa/south-africa/articles/a-lost-african-city-has-just-been-discovered-by-scientists/ https://www.historicmysteries.com/derinkuyu-underground-city-cappadocia/

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 128*Hubble Space Telescope moves into safe modeThe iconic Hubble Space Telescope is back in Safe Mode today after the Earth orbiting observatory suddenly issued a series of error codes suspending all science operations.*Getting ready to launch the James Webb Space TelescopeAll systems are go for next month's launch of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The six and a half tonne observatory is slated to launch aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Space Agency's Kourou Space Port in French Guyana on December the 18th. *Ingenuity undertakes its 14th flight on MarsNASA's Mars Ingenuity helicopter has undertaken a successful 14th flight over the red planet's Jezero Crater.*The Science ReportCOVID-19 survivors with two vaccination shots show higher spike antibody levels.Flying foxes learning to survive in suburbia.Dairy cows have a natural drive to groom themselves and to scratch those hard-to-reach places.Alex on Tech: Starlink passes a major milestone.For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…Your support is needed...SpaceTime is an independently produced podcast (we are not funded by any government grants, big organisations or companies), and we're working towards becoming a completely listener supported show...meaning we can do away with the commercials and sponsors. We figure the time can be much better spent on researching and producing stories for you, rather than having to chase sponsors to help us pay the bills.That's where you come in....help us reach our first 1,000 subscribers...at that level the show becomes financially viable and bills can be paid without us breaking into a sweat every month. Every little bit helps...even if you could contribute just $1 per month. It all adds up.By signing up and becoming a supporter at the $5 or more level, you get immediate access to over 240 commercial-free, double, and triple episode editions of SpaceTime plus extended interview bonus content. You also receive all new episodes on a Monday rather than having to wait the week out. Subscribe via Patreon or Supercast (you get a month's free trial with Supercast to see if it's really for you or not)....and share in the rewards. Details at Patreon www.patreon.com/spacetimewithstuartgary or Supercast - https://bitesznetwork.supercast.tech/ Details at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com or www.bitesz.com For more SpaceTime visit https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com (mobile friendly). For enhanced Show Notes including photos to accompany this episode: https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/blog/ RSS feed: https://www.spreaker.com/show/2458531/episodes/feed Email: mailto:SpaceTime@bitesz.comTo receive the Astronomy Daily Newsletter free, direct to your inbox...just join our mailing list at www.bitesz.com or visit https://www.bitesz.com/p/astronomy-daily/

After a bit of a scare, the aging Hubble Space Telescope has once again resumed its science operations with the ACS instrument brought back online. Plus, Landsat 9 released its first images and the Crew 2 Dragon splashed down safely. Then we interview Dr. Rosanne Di Stefano from the Center for Astrophysics about the potential discovery of the first extragalactic planet.

This week on Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion, we welcome Dr. Rosanne Di Stefano from the Center for Astrophysics to the show, talking about her work finding the first planet yet seen in another galaxy. We also look in on the ailing Hubble Space Telescope, as that famed instrument unexpectedly shuts down. We're going to examine the first signs of water within a galaxy in the ancient Cosmos, and we will look up in the night sky as Uranus offers amateur astronomers a prime chance to view that world. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-cosmic-companion/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-cosmic-companion/support

Sanjana and Oskar discuss the new James Webb Space Telescope and the expectations scientists have, as well as comparing the Webb to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Be careful what you poll… A vote on Twitter by Elon Musk has urged him to sell 10% of his stake in Tesla in order to pay tax. The poll was done in response to a "billionaires tax" proposed by US Democrats. The successor to the Hubble Space Telescope is set to launch in six weeks... after more than a decade of delays. Astronaut Wang Yaping has made history by becoming the first Chinese woman to walk in space. The US offers bounty of up to $10m for information on hacking group known as ‘DarkSide'. Has frozen semen from the 1960s repopulated an extinct species of cow? Why SpaceX has had to delay four astronauts' return to Earth. A mysterious app climbs top of the charts but no one really knows why. And, a nine-foot-tall joystick breaks records. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Photo:  View of the capture and first EVA to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble in unknown trouble. Bob Zimmerman BehindtheBlack.com HFN https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/hubble-still-in-safe-mode/

As befits a giant planet, Uranus has a giant entourage of moons — at least 27 of them. Yet the planet is so far away that its moons are tough to see. In fact, most of them weren't discovered until the last few decades. William Herschel discovered the first two in 1787 — not long after he discovered the planet itself. Herschel proposed naming them for characters from Shakespeare, and his colleagues agreed. So those first discoveries were named Titania and Oberon, for the queen of the fairies and her husband from “A Midsummer Night's Dream.” Not surprisingly, they're the biggest of all the planet's moons. Titania is a thousand miles in diameter, while Oberon is just a bit smaller. William Lassell discovered the next two moons of Uranus — the third- and fourth-largest — in 1851. And Gerard Kuiper discovered the next one — the fifth-largest — at McDonald Observatory in 1948. Since then, the moons have come in bunches. The Voyager 2 spacecraft revealed 10 new moons when it flew past the planet in 1986. The rest have been found since then, with Hubble Space Telescope, telescopes on the ground, and through more analysis of the Voyager observations — giving Uranus a mighty entourage. Uranus itself is in view all night, in the constellation Aries. It's brightest for the year, too. It's so far away, though, that you really need binoculars to see the planet — and a telescope to see any of its moons.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

Photo:  Pushing the limits of its powerful vision, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope uncovered the oldest burned-out stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. These extremely old, dim "clockwork stars" provide a completely independent reading on the age of the universe. White Dwarfs and Strange Rocky Exoplanets.  Bob Zimmerman BehindtheBlack.com https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/evidence-from-nearby-white-dwarfs-suggest-rocky-exoplanets-are-alien-to-earth/

Spaceflight news— Orbital Reef announced (blueorigin.com) (orbitalreef.com) (nasaspaceflight.com) (youtube.com) — Other Commercial LEO Destination (CLD) proposals so far: — Axiom Station (axiomspace.com) — Nanoracks/Lockheed/Voyager's Starlab (cnet.com) — Sierra Space Station (sierraspace.com)Short & Sweet— James Webb Space Telescope prepares for launch (spacenews.com) (planetary.org) (spacenews.com)— Russia gives Crew Dragon the green light (spacenews.com)— Hubble Space Telescope returns to safe mode (cnet.com)This week in SF history— 8 November, 2011: Failed launch of Fobos-Grunt/Yinghuo-1 (en.wikipedia.org) (en.wikipedia.org)— Next week (11/9 - 11-15) in 1970: Parietal eye in the sky

Nestled away in the Eagle Nebula was a stellar nursery formation dubbed the Pillars of Creation after the Hubble Space Telescope spotted it in 1995 - an image so iconic that it began reshaping the look of both science and sci-fi on our screens. Follow Sci-Fi 5 for your daily dose of science-fiction history. Written by Earl Green Hosted by Jessica Lynn Verdi

Nestled away in the Eagle Nebula was a stellar nursery formation dubbed the Pillars of Creation after the Hubble Space Telescope spotted it in 1995 - an image so iconic that it began reshaping the look of both science and sci-fi on our screens. Follow Sci-Fi 5 for your daily dose of science-fiction history. Written by Earl Green Hosted by Jessica Lynn Verdi

Well, you're familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope of course, but it's just one of NASA's Great Observatories. After Hubble came 3 more incredible telescopes. Each greater than the last! (That's not true… The first one was the greatest.) But together they would fill in almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

Astronomy Cast Ep. 616: Hangout-A-Thon Episode 1 - The Great Observatories by Fraser Cain & Dr. Pamela Gay Well, you're familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope of course, but it's just one of NASA's Great Observatories. After Hubble came 3 more incredible telescopes. Each greater than the last! (That's not true… The first one was the greatest.) But together they would fill in almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

Well, you're familiar with the Hubble Space Telescope of course, but it's just one of NASA's Great Observatories. After Hubble came 3 more incredible telescopes. Each greater than the last! (That's not true… The first one was the greatest.) But together they would fill in almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

http://www.astronomycast.com/archive/ From November 2, 2009. You might know the name “Hubble” because of the Hubble Space Telescope. But this phenomenal observatory was named after one of the most influential astronomers in modern history. Hubble discovered that galaxies are speeding away from us in all directions, leading to our current understanding of an expanding Universe. Let's learn about the man behind the telescope.   We've added a new way to donate to 365 Days of Astronomy to support editing, hosting, and production costs.  Just visit: https://www.patreon.com/365DaysOfAstronomy and donate as much as you can! Share the podcast with your friends and send the Patreon link to them too!  Every bit helps! Thank you! ------------------------------------ Do go visit http://www.redbubble.com/people/CosmoQuestX/shop for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness! http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.  Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!) ------------------------------------ The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Planetary Science Institute. http://www.psi.edu Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org.

A lively dialogue on the mission, design, and implications of SuperBIT balloon-borne telescope one of the highest resolution telescopes ever made with our guest Barth Netterfield PhD, Professor, DADDAA & Physics at Uni of Toronto and project lead of SuperBIT mission to image weak gravitational lensing, galactic star formation, distribution and quantity of dark matter in galaxy clusters and super exoplanet atmospheres. The $5M Super-pressure Balloon-borne Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT) is 1,300X lower than the cost of the $6.5bn Hubble Space Telescope to image visible-to-near-UV (300-900 um) with 0.25-.5 arc second imaging and 50X more sensitive resolution than hubble. With a 0.5 m mirror, wide-field, 1.5m aperture, SuperBIT is equipped a helium balloon and 80kg carbon fiber mount telescope with a 69-megapixel camera with low read noise, high quantum efficiency and very low dark current that is capable of flying 1,000kg science payload at 35km altitude. Toward the end of the Podcast episode, Barth enlightens us about the preliminary plans and implications of GigaBIT, next generation atmospheric telescope focusing on green, blue and UV imaging wavelengths, which is planned to be 4X better than ground telescopes with 3X imaging stability over superbit potential launch in late 2020's SuperBIT: A low-cost, balloon-borne telescope to rival Hubble https://phys.org/news/2021-07-superbit-low-cost-balloon-borne-telescope-rival.html _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Romualdez, L. J., et al (2018). Overview, design, and flight results from SuperBIT: A high-resolution, wide-field, visible-to-near-UV balloon-borne astronomical telescope. In L. Simard, L. Simard, C. J. Evans, & H. Takami (Eds.), Ground-based and Airborne Instrumentation for Astronomy VII [107020R] (Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering; Vol. 10702). SPIE. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2307754 --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/frontierspace/support

Hubble Space Telescope has revealed some of the earliest galaxies in the universe — “cities” of stars as they looked when the universe was about half a billion years old. Astronomers would like to see even deeper, though — to the time when the first galaxies were taking shape. And if everything goes well, they'll soon get a new tool for the search. James Webb Space Telescope is being prepared for launch this fall. It's the largest space telescope ever built. Its main mirror spans about 21 feet. And it will collect almost seven times as much light as Hubble. That will allow the telescope to see galaxies taking shape roughly a quarter of a billion years after the Big Bang. Those observations will help scientists understand how massive clouds of gas and dust came together to make stars and galaxies. Webb is designed to study the universe at infrared wavelengths, which are invisible to the human eye. Most infrared comes from objects that are fairly cool. That includes clouds that are giving birth to stars, and disks around stars that are giving birth to planets. It also includes the planets themselves — those orbiting other stars, and those in our own solar system. Webb will try to measure the atmospheres of some of those distant worlds. If any of them have life, the telescope might be able to see some of the chemistry it produces — sniffing out signs of life with a giant new “eye” in space. We'll have more about the James Webb Space Telescope tomorrow. Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

The Astronomy, Technology, and Space Science News Podcast.SpaceTime Series 24 Episode 117*Hubble shows winds in Jupiter's great red spot are speeding upA new study based on images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows that winds near the edge of Jupiter's Great Red Spot are accelerating.*NASA's deep space atomic clock completes its missionNASA says its experimental deep space atomic clock has now completed its mission.*Dragon returns to EarthA SpaceX Dragon cargo ship has safely splashed down in the North Atlantic Ocean loaded with equipment and completed experiments from the International Space Station.*The Science ReportA new study shows that losing 15 per cent body weight could help people with type 2 diabetes.Russia undertakes two new Zircon hypersonic missile tests.Discovery of two new Spinosaurid predatory dinosaurs related to the giant Spinosaurus.Skeptic's guide to pet psychics.For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ If you love this podcast, please get someone else to listen too. Thank you…Your support is needed...SpaceTime is an independently produced podcast (we are not funded by any government grants, big organisations or companies), and we're working towards becoming a completely listener supported show...meaning we can do away with the commercials and sponsors. We figure the time can be much better spent on researching and producing stories for you, rather than having to chase sponsors to help us pay the bills.That's where you come in....help us reach our first 1,000 subscribers...at that level the show becomes financially viable and bills can be paid without us breaking into a sweat every month. Every little bit helps...even if you could contribute just $1 per month. It all adds up.By signing up and becoming a supporter at the $5 or more level, you get immediate access to over 240 commercial-free, double, and triple episode editions of SpaceTime plus extended interview bonus content. You also receive all new episodes on a Monday rather than having to wait the week out. Subscribe via Patreon or Supercast (you get a month's free trial with Supercast to see if it's really for you or not)....and share in the rewards. Details at Patreon www.patreon.com/spacetimewithstuartgary or Supercast - https://bitesznetwork.supercast.tech/ Details at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com or www.bitesz.com Sponsor Details:This episode is brought to you with the support of NameCheap…cheap domain names is just the beginning of your own online presence. We use them and we love them. Get our special deal…just visit: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/namecheap and help support the show.For more SpaceTime visit https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com (mobile friendly). For enhanced Show Notes including photos to accompany this episode: https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/blog/ RSS feed: https://rss.acast.com/spacetime Email: mailto:SpaceTime@bitesz.comTo receive the Astronomy Daily Newsletter free, direct to your inbox...just join our mailing list at www.bitesz.com or visit https://www.bitesz.com/p/astronomy-daily/Help support SpaceTime: The SpaceTime with Stuart Gary merchandise shop. Get your T-Shirts, Coffee Cups, badges, tote bag + more and help support the show. Check out the range: http://www.cafepress.com/spacetime Thank you.To receive the Astronomy Daily Newsletter free, direct to your inbox...just join our mailing list. Details at https://www.bitesz.com/show/spacetime/p/astronomy-daily/

Photo:  The water reservoir in a Water Management Park in Sweden. https://picryl.com/media/celestial-fireworks-3a6b1d Resembling the puffs of smoke and sparks from a summer fireworks display in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, these delicate filaments are actually sheets of debris from a stellar explosion in a neighboring galaxy.  . . .  In the case of N 49, not only is the neutron star spinning at a rate of once every 8 seconds, it also has a super-strong magnetic field a thousand trillion times stronger than Earth's magnetic field. This places this star into the exclusive class of objects called "magnetars."    Trillions of Tales of Two Infrastructures. @DanHenninger @WSJOpinion  https://www.wsj.com/articles/nancy-pelosi-spending-plan-zero-cost-infrastructure-build-back-better-reconciliation-11632944432