American astrophysicist
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Use code coolworldspodcast at https://incogni.com/coolworldspodcast to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan. In this week's episode, David is joined by Natalie Batalha, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz. Prof Batalha was one of the leaders of the historic NASA Kepler Mission which discovered the majority of known exoplanets, and in 2017 was one of the Time 100 most influential people. To support this podcast and our research lab, head to https://coolworldslab.com/support Cool Worlds Podcast Theme by Hill [https://open.spotify.com/artist/1hdkvBtRdOW4SPsnxCXOjK]
Our guest is Dr. Natalie Batalha, astrophysicist and professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at UC Santa Cruz, specializing in detecting and characterizing exoplanets, including potentially habitable alien worlds! Dr. Batalha was the Co-Investigator and Mission Scientist for the Kepler Space Telescope, and today uses the world's most powerful ground-based telescopes to identify planets suitable for further study with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Check out our website for the full transcript of this podcast, plus the full YouTube version of this episode:
What's the deal with the James Webb Space Telescope? On this episode, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Matt Kirshen learn about the JWST and what it will help us discover with NASA astronomer Natalie Batalha and filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free.Thanks to our Patrons Stefan Fox, Cortex MC, Brenton Verlo, taylor primm, Charles Shieler, Alden Doolittle, and Thomas Harshbarger for supporting us this week.Photo Credit: NASA/MSFC/David Higginbotham, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Astronomer Natalie Batalha embodies a planetary sense of what “love” is and means. She says her experience searching the universe for exoplanets — earth-like bodies beyond our solar system that could harbor liquid water and life — fundamentally shifted how she thinks about the human experience on this planet. “You see the expanse of the cosmos, and you realize how small we are and how connected we are,” she says. “And that what’s good for you has to be good for me.” Natalie Batalha is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. She served as the project scientist for NASA’s Kepler mission from 2011 to 2017. Find the transcript at onbeing.org.
Over the years, listeners have asked for shorter-form distillations of On Being — something to listen to while making a cup of tea. Becoming Wise is this offering, designed to help you reset your day and replenish your sense of yourself and the world, ten minutes at a time. A taste of the second season, which launched this week, curated from hundreds of big conversations Krista has had with wise and graceful lives — including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, astronomer Natalie Batalha, and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle. To receive an episode every Monday morning, subscribe at onbeing.org or wherever podcasts are found.
I fyra år samlade Keplersatellliten data om planeter runt främmande stjärnor. Jordliknande planeter är vanliga, vet vi nu. Och därute i rymden finns också märkliga världar som inte alls liknar vår. Natalie Batalha har jobbat med Keplersatelliten på Nasa i Kalifornien sedan långt innan den sköts upp 2009. I Vetandets värld berättar hon om hur satelliten har arbetat, och om den mångfald av planeter den har hittat. Keplers huvudsyfte har varit att ta reda på hur många planeter det finns som kan tänkas hysa liv. Minst tio miljarder bara i vår galax, blev svaret. Kommande projekt, som till exempel James Webb-teleskopet som ska skickas upp 2019, kommer att gå vidare genom att undersöka de funna planeternas atmosfärer. Programmet är en repris från den 28 februari 2018. Camilla Widebeck Camilla.widebeck@sr.se
A literary thinker with a “telescopic view of time”; an astrophysicist with an eye to “cultural evolution towards good.” What unfolds between these two is joyous, dynamic, and unexpectedly vulnerable — rich with cosmic imagining, civic pondering, and even some fresh definitions of the soul. A live taping from the inaugural On Being Gathering at the 1440 Multiversity in California.
A literary thinker with a “telescopic view of time”; an astrophysicist with an eye to “cultural evolution towards good.” What unfolds between these two is joyous, dynamic, and unexpectedly vulnerable — rich with cosmic imagining, civic pondering, and even some fresh definitions of the soul. A live taping from the inaugural On Being Gathering at the 1440 Multiversity in California. This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode “Maria Popova and Natalie Batalha — Cosmic Imagining, Civic Pondering.” Find more at onbeing.org.
In the 20th episode of Exocast we discuss all things #ExoCup What is the ExoCup? How was it conceived? What was the result? Why was it so stressful for the Exocast crew? We take a voxbox from some members of the exoplanet community on their opinions of the ExoCup (inc. Dr. Jessie Christiansen, Dr. Nikole Lewis, Dr. Natalie Batalha, Dr. Abhi Rajan); Andrew reports on the months interesting exoplanetary news that was still churning outRead more
From 2009 to 2013, the Kepler Space telescope looked for exoplanets. It stared unblinkingly at a patch of sky which Dr Batalha had selected hoping to find potential life supporting planets in the Goldilocks zone. Then something bad happened. Find out what can go wrong and how Dr Karl’s mind was blown to astronomical proportions.
From 2009 to 2013, the Kepler Space telescope looked for exoplanets – planets outside our solar system. It stared unblinkingly at a patch of sky which Dr Batalha had selected hoping to find not just exoplanets, but exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone. Find out what happened, what can go wrong and how Dr Karl’s mind was blown to astronomical proportions.
Today’s guest on STEM-Talk is Dr. Chris McKay, a leading astrobiologist and planetary scientist with the Space Science Division of the NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Chris’s interview covers a diverse range of topics ranging from the origins of life to the possibility of manned missions to Mars. For the past 30 years, Chris has been advancing our understanding of planetary science. He graduated from Florida Atlantic University in 1975 with a degree in physics and earned a doctorate in astrogeophysics at the University of Colorado in 1982. He was a co-investigator on the Huygens probe to Saturn’s moon Titan in 2005, the Mars Phoenix lander mission in 2008, and the current Mars Science Laboratory mission. His research at NASA has focused on the evolution of the solar system and the origin of life. He also has been heavily involved in NASA’s Mars missions including the current Mars rover — Curiosity. In addition, Chris has thought deeply about the human exploration of Mars. He has spent considerable time studying polar and desert environments to better understand how humans might survive in Mars-like environments. His research has taken him to the Antarctic Dry Valleys, the Atacama Desert, the Arctic, and the Namib Desert. In 2015, the Desert Research Institute named Chris the Nevada Medalist, which is the highest scientific honor in the state. Links: STEM-Talk Episode 33, interview with NASA’s Natalie Batalha - http://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode-33/ Chris McKay’s NASA profile page - https://spacescience.arc.nasa.gov/staff/chris-mckay/ Show Notes 3:53: Ken and Dawn welcome Chris to the show. 4:05: Dawn asks Chris if it is true that the television series Star Trek inspired him to take up science and start studying planets as a kid. 4:34: Dawn comments on how Apollo happened almost 50 years ago when Chris was a teenager and asks him where he was for Apollo 11 and what it meant to him. 5:24: Ken asks Chris how he learned about Florida Atlantic University, as it was a relatively new university at the time, and asks Chris why he chose it. 6:54: Dawn asks Chris if he was thinking about becoming an astronaut when he decided to major in physics. 7:27: Ken asks Chris what it was like to be a summer intern in the Planetary Biology program at the NASA Ames Research Center around 1980. 8:52: Dawn asks Chris how he chose the University of Colorado, where he earned a PhD in astrogeophysics. 10:42: Dawn asks Chris to discuss his transition from mechanical engineering to astrogeophysics. 12:11: Ken discusses how Chris ended up back at NASA Ames as an astrobiologist and planetary scientist after graduate school. 13:53: Dawn comments how Chris’s research is taking him to extreme places, and asks him to explain what extremophiles are and what their relevance is in the search for life beyond Earth. 17:26: Dawn comments on her experiences searching for extremophiles while working on cave diving projects. 18:12: Dawn asks Chris what his most recent search experience for extremophiles on our planet was. 19:49: Dawn asks Chris what he takes to be the most exciting extremophile discovery out of all of the work he has done. 22:40: Dawn asks Chris to talk about his favorite and least favorite aspects of field research. 24:06: Ken asks Chris to define some terms related to the search for life beyond Earth. Specifically, whether we have a definition for life itself and if not, what exactly we are searching for when we say we are searching for life. He also asks Chris to talk about alien life and how it differs from life on Earth. 26:21: Ken asks Chris how tough it would be to recognize alien life if it is based on fundamentally different chemistry than life on Earth. 29:16: Ken asks Chris where NASA’s secret alien life storage room is. 31:03: Ken asks Chris what the scientific importance of discovering life in another world is.
In December 2016, three generations of women astronomers joined me for a phone call. Debra Fischer, Natalie Batalha, and Margaret Turnbull have dedicated their careers to comprehending planets beyond the solar system, the signs of microbial life that might be on those planets, or both of those out-there topics.
A conversation with one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Natalie Batalha, the Kepler mission project scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
Dr. Natalie Batalha’s STEM-Talk interview was so contagious that Dawn Kernagis said it made her dream of returning to school to get a second graduate degree in astronomy. “Hearing Natalie talk about her research had all of us in the STEM-Talk studio buzzing,” said Dawn, the podcast’s co-host. Natalie is an astrophysicist and the project scientist for NASA’s Kepler Mission, a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. She sat down with Dawn and veteran astronaut and IHMC senior research scientist Tom Jones for episode 33 of STEM-Talk. As one of the original co-investigators of the Kepler Mission, Natalie has been a leader in using the telescope to discover exoplanets, which are planets that orbit stars other than our own sun. Natalie has been involved in the Kepler Mission since the proposal stage and has helped identify more than 150,000 stars that are monitored by the telescope. She holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from The University of California Berkeley, and a doctoral degree in astrophysics from UC Santa Cruz. She taught physics and astronomy for 10 years at San Jose State University before joining the Space Sciences Division of the NASA Ames Research Center, which is located in California’s Silicon Valley. In 2011, Natalie received a NASA Public Service Medal for her vision in communicating Kepler’s science to the public, and also for her outstanding leadership in coordinating the Kepler science team. That same year Natalie also headed up the analysis that led to the discovery of Kepler 10b, the first confirmed rocky planet outside our solar system. She joined the leadership team of a new NASA initiative in 2015, which is dedicated to the search for evidence of life beyond our solar system. Called the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science, the program brings together teams from multiple disciplines to understand the diversity of worlds, and which of those exoplanets are most likely to harbor life. As if Dawn and the STEM-Talk gang weren't excited enough after talking to Natalie about the search for life beyond our solar system, NASA announced about a month after our interview with Natalie that its Spitzer Space Telescope had revealed the first known system of seven Earth-sized planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water. According to a NASA press release in February, the discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone. 0:30: Dawn welcomes Ken Ford, IHMC founder and director as well as the chairman of the Double Secret Selection Committee that chooses guests who appear on STEM-Talk. Dawn and Ken then talk about Natalie’s background as an astrophysicist. 4:35: Dawn welcomes her co-host for this episode of STEM-Talk, Tom Jones, and they begin the interview by asking Natalie how she became interested in astronomy. 8:03: Natalie talks about how as an undergrad at Berkeley she met a post-doctoral researcher from Brazil who later became her husband. As a result, she ended up doing her post-doctoral work in Rio de Janeiro. 15:47: Dawn asks Natalie to describe the history of the Kepler mission. 19:00: Tom asks Natalie to describe the difficulty of trying to detect a distant planet. 21:34: Natalie describes how long the Kepler telescope has been in space and provides a summary of its findings. 25:30: Natalie talks about lava worlds, which have oceans larger than the Pacific Ocean, but they’re made of lava, which is why scientists call them lava worlds. 27:30: Dawn asks Natalie about the discovery of Kepler 10b,
Dr Karl looks to the stars to kick off his new podcast with NASA Ames research astrophysicist Dr Natalie Batalha, the Kepler Mission Scientist. From 2009 to 2013, the Kepler Space telescope looked for exoplanets – planets outside our solar system. It stared unblinkingly at a patch of sky which Dr Batalha had selected hoping to find not just exoplanets, but exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone. Find out what happened, what can go wrong and how Dr Karl’s mind was blown to astronomical proportions.
This week, Jason interviews Natalie Batalha, NASA's Kepler mission project scientist, about the spacecraft, the K2 mission and some exoplanets found by the mission.
"Not too hot, not too cold" reads the prescription for a world that's just right for life as we know it. Finding evidence of life beyond Earth is one of the primary goals of science agencies around the world. The goal looms closer as a result of discoveries made by NASA's Kepler Mission. Find out more from Dr Natalie Batalha, NASA Ames Research Center and the Mission Scientist for NASA's Kepler Mission, as she describes the latest discoveries and the possibilities for finding inhabited environments in the not-so-distant future. This lecture took place at the University of Sydney as part of the 2016 Professor Walter Stibbs Lecture, an annual lecture by a distinguished astronomer of international standing. A Sydney Ideas co-presentation http://sydney.edu.au/sydney_ideas/lectures/2016/dr_natalie_batalha.shtml
Kepler mission scientist Natalie Batalha describes the endeavor’s latest discoveries and the possibilities for finding inhabited environments in the not-so-distant future. This lecture took place at the Hayden Planetarium on May 11, 2015. Support for Hayden Planetarium Programs is provided by the Horace W. Goldsmith Endowment Fund.
Natalie Batalha is a research astronomer at NASA Ames Research Center and a mission scientist with the Kepler Space Telescope. Krista Tippett spoke with her on December 13, 2012 via ISDN. This interview is included in our show “On Exoplanets and Love: Natalie Batalha on Science That Connects Us to One Another.” Download the mp3 of the produced show at onbeing.org.
A mission scientist with NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope, Natalie Batalha hunts for exoplanets — Earth-sized planets beyond our solar system that might harbor life. She speaks about unexpected connections between things like love and dark energy, science and gratitude, and how “exploring the heavens” brings the beauty of the cosmos and the exuberance of scientific discovery closer to us all.
This week we talk with Dr. Natalie Batalha, co-investigator of NASA's Kepler Team. Dr. Batalha talks to us about her love of science (especially physics), the Kepler mission, and the discovery of planet Kepler 10b. Show notes: http://laboutloud.com
Professor Natalie Batalha of San Jose State university discusses exoplanets (October 4, 2010).
Professor Natalie Batalha of San Jose State university discusses exoplanets (October 4, 2010).