A View From Earth

It's that time of year again, time to look back at the work we've done over the years and also to look forward into the future.

This year however, our holiday special is unfortunately our last. Starting next year A View From Earth will be changing shape into a new podcast called SciHArt. Funded by the PUNCH mission, SciHArt, which stands for Scientists as Hobbyists and Artists, will feature leaders in science, engineering, and science communication who are in different phases of their career journey, from undergraduate researchers to senior professionals playing leadership roles on NASA missions.

The initial podcasts will focus on members of the science, engineering, and outreach teams of the NASA PUNCH mission and other professionals in the lesser-known field of Heliophysics.

We are looking forward to the new year and the changes that we'll be going through and hope that you will join us for the ride.

Most people assume that students of astronomy and astrophysics are inevitably destined for a career in research or teaching, including the students themselves. Many universities perpetuate this with a lack of career counseling and advising at both the undergraduate and graduate level. However, there are many options for STEM degree-holders besides academia! This week we bring on a guest who has been on both sides of the line. We talk about the differences between academia and industry, why schools shouldn’t emphasize one over the other, and why it’s never too late to start something new!

Big powerful rockets may get all the glory, but did you know you don’t need to send instruments into orbit to do really valuable research? Sounding rockets are specifically designed to fly scientific instruments in the region between weather balloons and satellites, allowing us to make measurements that only require being above most of the Earth’s atmosphere. They are also frequently used to study the atmosphere itself! This week we talk with a scientist who specializes in using sounding rockets to research everything from nearby planets to galactic evolution to the structure of the universe itself!

Life as a student these days can involve much more than just classes. Several new NASA initiatives aim to involve college students in mission science in all areas, including instrument design and development. NASA’s new PUNCH mission includes a student-built x-ray spectrometer as part of its instrument suite, which will provide valuable diagnostic data that can help the PUNCH team understand how the corona is heated as well as how the solar wind undergoes its initial acceleration from the surface of the Sun. This week we talk with one CU student who is the project manager for the instrument team, facilitating the collaboration between students and scientists.

As long as there have been people on the Earth there have been astronomers: those who studied and tried to make sense of the sky. Though Western science tends to focus on contributions by the ancient Greeks and Romans, astronomy has always been a significant cultural teaching tool around the world. Our guest this week is a native Australian who uses performance art and storytelling to bring to life the creation story told in the stars by an Aboriginal tribe in the northern part of the continent. His work not only celebrates the teachings of these Aboriginal peoples but helps to preserve their culture and ensure their legacy through their understanding of the sky.

NASA’s PUNCH mission is a suite of small satellites that aim to study the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, and how the corona accelerates to become the solar wind that fills the solar system. That’s the official description anyway; beyond just the science, PUNCH also has a plan to activate the theme of Ancient & Modern Sun watching to extend helio­physics outreach to underserved and under-represented populations as well as to the broader public in the American South­west and beyond. This week we talk with PUNCH’s PI, Dr. Craig DeForest, about how combining high-tech science investigation, amateur observation, and indigenous and historical knowledge gives us a more complete and robust vision of our space weather environment. See more at https://punch.space.swri.edu

We all know weather here in Colorado’s Front Range can be unpredictable at best, but predicting atmospheric conditions on even larger scales can seem impossible due to the astounding number of factors involved. A new CU-led center, called Wave-induced Atmospheric Variability Enterprise (or just WAVE), is examining one oft-overlooked component of our atmosphere: gravity waves. In this episode, we interview two scientists working on the WAVE project about what these gravity waves are and how they affect not only our local weather but also the atmosphere as a whole, and how they can even influence interactions between the Earth and the sun! See more here: lasp.colorado.edu/home/wave/wave-to-a-waver/

Until very recently, space travel and exploration was inherently tied to government policy. Regulated agencies are responsible for setting priorities, approving funding, and high-level management of missions and projects. While science itself has no political ties, astronomers have long relied on space policy experts as advocates to help navigate the trials of the political landscape. In our final episode of the season, we talk with one such expert about his experiences with government regulation and oversight, the frequent politicalization of science, and how these policies may be rewritten in the new era of commercial spaceflight.

Dr. Jack Burns is a Professor and an active NSF and NASA-funded researcher in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU Boulder. His teaching and research focus on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, supercomputer numerical simulations, astrophysics from the Moon, and public policy issues in higher education and science. Currently, Burns serves as Chair of the NASA Advisory Council’s Science Committee and also chairs the American Astronomical Society’s Committee on Science and Public Policy.

Rarely does a person think of “science” and “philosophy” in the same sentence, and when they do the two fields are often thought to be at odds. However, throughout history many of the world’s most famous philosophers were also scientists, and vice versa! From Plato and Aristotle to Descartes and Newton to the quantum physicists of today, the ideals of science have always been tied to our human perceptions. The “search for truth” unites philosophers and scientists alike with the goal of understanding the world around and within us. This week we talk with a CU professor about the intersection of science and philosophy to see how discoveries in physics and astronomy affect human thought and behavior.

Dr. Heather Demarest is a professor of philosophy at CU Boulder who studies the metaphysical implications of current physics. Most recently, her work is on the way in which special and general relativity inform philosophical notions of time, personal identity, and causation. She is the director of the Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science, and has also done research on the retention of undergraduate women in philosophy.

With hydrogen and oxygen being two of the most abundant elements in the universe, it may be no surprise that water is found, in one form or another, all over the place! In our solar system alone, there may be nearly a dozen objects harboring vast oceans beneath their icy surfaces. In this episode, we chat with a NASA mission scientist about these “ocean worlds” --- why they’re so cool, what we still don’t understand about them, and why NASA considers them a prime target for studies in the next decade.

Dr. Amanda Hendrix is a CU alumnus and planetary scientist known for her pioneering studies of solar system bodies at ultraviolet wavelengths. She was a co-investigator on the Cassini and Galileo UVS instruments, is a Participating Scientist on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter LAMP instrument, and is a Principal Investigator on Hubble Space Telescope observing programs. She is also the co-lead of the NASA Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds Group, advocating for exploration of ocean worlds in the outer solar system. Hendrix was also a NASA astronaut candidate finalist in 2000.