Podcasts about nasa's curiosity

The space agency's only working Mars rover may need an attitude adjustment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you think our exploration of Mars ended with NASA's Curiosity, think again! A new and improved rover is heading to the red planet next year as Dean Regas and Anna Hehman learn from their guest, Ken Williford , deputy project scientist for the Mars 2020 project.

The horror of the blazing Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris has been slightly quenched by the fact that so much of the French landmark has been saved. But what was it about the structure of the roof, with some the beams dating from the 13th century, that meant it burned like a well-stacked bonfire? Guillermo Rein is Professor of Fire Science at Imperial College London , and he explains to Adam Rutherford how wood burns and how it was the intricate mixture of large and small beams, and very poor fire protection measures that made the iconic roof, so vulnerable. An experiment to see whether isolated dead pig brains could be preserved at the cellular level in order to study post mortem brains, had a surprising outcome. The BrainEx technology of perfusing the brains with chemicals that should have just halted the rapid degradation of cellular structure in the brain, that occurs soon after death, actually caused them to start firing neurons, reacting to drugs and generally behaving as if they were alive. Although, it has to be stressed, there was no whole-brain connectivity or consciousness achieved, it does raise ethical questions about death, if this method was to be developed for use in humans. Bioethicist at Kings College London, Silvia Camporesi explores the facts that reveal that death is a process rather than a single event and what this might mean for patients that are diagnosed as brain dead. Where is the Martian methane? This is the question Mannish Patel at the Open University has been left pondering after the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter came up empty handed in detecting the gas on Mars. Methane could be a signature of past of present life on the Red Planet, it's been measured by NASA's Curiosity rover and by telescopes on Earth, but the far more sensitive and specialised TGO has so far failed to detect the gas. It could be because methane levels in the thin Martian atmosphere is a seasonal event, we'll just have to ait for an entire Martian year of surveys to be able to solve this mystery. Our faces are incredibly important in our lives, we feed through them, they are the conduit for our sensory interaction with the universe, via smell, hearing and vision; we speak, and we convey the subtlest emotions with a raised eyebrow, a wry smile, a clenched jaw or eyes wide open. It is the central importance of these features that has meant we’ve been intensively studying the evolution of the face for decades, to work out why we look the way we do, and how much of our looks reflects adaptations that enhanced our survival, and how much is just down to quirks of evolution. Anatomist, Paul O’Higgins from York University is interested in how all that has influenced our faces. Producer: Fiona Roberts

After 2000 days on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover is still going strong. In this month's Space Boffins Richard visits Imperial College London to talk to one of the lead scientists on the mission, Sanjeev Gupta, about water on Mars, life and future astronaut missions. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, Sue discovers the connection between the Beatles and space science, author Vix Southgate chats to Richard about Soviet space dogs and the words of Yuri Gagarin from orbit. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

After 2000 days on Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover is still going strong. In this month's Space Boffins Richard visits Imperial College London to talk to one of the lead scientists on the mission, Sanjeev Gupta, about water on Mars, life and future astronaut missions. Meanwhile, in Liverpool, Sue discovers the connection between the Beatles and space science, author Vix Southgate chats to Richard about Soviet space dogs and the words of Yuri Gagarin from orbit. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

NASA's Curiosity finds crystals, Opportunity celebrates her 5,000th day on Mars and the MarCO smallsats get solar arrays.

NASA's Curiosity finds crystals, Opportunity celebrates her 5,000th day on Mars and the MarCO smallsats get solar arrays.

April 16, 2013. Pamela Conrad discussed her research on planetary habitability assessments. NASA's Curiosity rover is providing vital insight about Mars' past and current environments that will aid plans for future robotic and human missions. Speaker Biography: Pamela Conrad is deputy principal investigator for the Mars Science Laboratory at Goddard Space Flight Center. For transcript, captions, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=6277

NASA's Curiosity rover landed on Mars in August 2012, and it has spent that past 15 months exploring a region of the planet called Gale Crater. This week the team running the rover reported on what they've found so far, and so here's your Quick Fire Science about our planetary next door neighbour with Dominic Ford and Hannah Critchlow. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Topic covered on today's episode of Mind Set Daily "Are We Martians?" Scientists have long debated the idea that life got its start elsewhere in the universe, and then was transported to Earth on meteorites or comets. For years, scientists have been saying that although present-day Mars is an inhospitable place, it was much more habitable billions of years ago. The findings from NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars have added fresh support to such claims. What do you think? Is it more likely that life came to Earth from Mars, or that earthly life is entirely home-grown? Are we all Martians? Just think about it.. Listen to this episode to find out more! News Story Link News Clip Link Support Mind Set Central Suscribe or donate

Space Boffins Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson go to a comet, Mars and into space. This month's podcast is from the Open University's Rosetta mission room and includes NASA's Curiosity rover mission specialist Daniel Limonadi, British space scientist Maggie Aderin Pocock and Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian woman in space. Meanwhile studio guests Dr Dan Andrews and Professor Ian Wright explain why their Ptolemy instrument on board Rosetta's comet chasing mission is not a burglar alarm (even if it looks like one) but an advanced technology, state-of-the-art electronic nose. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

Space Boffins Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson go to a comet, Mars and into space. This month's podcast is from the Open University's Rosetta mission room and includes NASA's Curiosity rover mission specialist Daniel Limonadi, British space scientist Maggie Aderin Pocock and Anousheh Ansari, the first Iranian woman in space. Meanwhile studio guests Dr Dan Andrews and Professor Ian Wright explain why their Ptolemy instrument on board Rosetta's comet chasing mission is not a burglar alarm (even if it looks like one) but an advanced technology, state-of-the-art electronic nose. Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

You may be forgiven for having missed the news of NASA's Curiosity rover, or Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), having landed on Mars, given all the coverage the 2012 Olympics had been getting. To try and even this up, we got in touch with Dr. Leila Battison, a palaeontologist from the University of Oxford, UK, who is currently working at NASA, researching the earliest life in the fossil record and the conditions it needed to survive. We discussed NASA's mission to Mars and explored what kind of things we could expect from any signs of life on another planet based on what we know about early life on Earth from the fossil record.

NASA's Curiosity rover is the coolest thing to happen on Mars since the rise of the Red Faction. This week, we're talking about games in space. We've also got Viewer Mail, thoughts on Deadlight and Limbo, and we pick sides in the EA vs Zynga dust-up. Episode TimelineIntro: 0:00Viewer Mail: 2:05Hangover: 7:30Space Games: 41:35Last Call: 63:50Outro: 69:30