Steven Squyres, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, has participated in a number of NASA's planetary space flight missions, including the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Magellan mission to Venus, the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission, and the Mars Exploration Rover Project. Here he ponders the future of planetary exploration. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 21041]

Steven Squyres, Professor of Astronomy at Cornell University, was the principle scientist behind the Mars Exploration Rover Project. He discusses the engineering challenges that had to be met in getting the rovers to Mars, as well as the scientific results obtained by both vehicles over more than seven years of exploration. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Science] [Show ID: 21040]

Learn how the local amateur astronomy community in San Diego, particularly the large San Diego Astronomy Association, can help classroom teachers and what hands-on exercises and instructional material would be useful in the classroom. Series: "TeacherTECH" [Science] [Show ID: 20383]

As part of UC San Diego’s Division of Physical Sciences 50th Anniversary Lecture Series, join UC San Diego’s Tom Murphy on an exploration of how his project looking for deviations in Einstein’s theory of general relativity led to the discovery of the Soviet Lunokhod 1 lunar rover that vanished mysteriously nearly 40 years ago. Series: "Frontiers of Knowledge" [Science] [Show ID: 20010]

400 years ago, our world-view changed when Galileo proved that the Earth was not the center of the universe but orbits around the Sun. 15 years ago the world shifted again when the first planets were discovered orbiting other stars. Last year, using adaptive optics and the 10 meter W.M. Keck telescope in Hawaii, a Lawrence Livermore National Lab team produced the first ever picture of another solar system. One day, these techniques may even lead to an image with a pale blue dot circling a nearby star - another Earth. Join LLNL astronomer Bruce Macintosh and Lisa Poyneer as they describe the new technologies that made these pictures possible. Series: "Lawrence Livermore National Lab Science on Saturday" [Science] [Show ID: 20235]

Megan McArthur, Astronaut and UC San Diego graduate who served on the final Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, discusses the experience of becoming an astronaut. Series: "Women in Science" [Science] [Show ID: 18130]

Robert C. Kennicutt, Jr., a prominent American astronomer with the University of Cambridge, discusses the hidden universe that can only be studied fully from space-borne telescopes. Series: "Scientific Horizons" [Science] [Show ID: 19869]

Sukanya Chakrabarti, UC Berkeley, explains how computer simulations tare used to understand the evolution of galaxies. Series: "Science Today" [Science] [Show ID: 18325]

Aerogels are a class of materials with fascinating properties but they are hardly materials at all as they can be composed of up to 99.8% empty space. Aerogels are among the most versatile materials available for technical applications due to their wide variety of exceptional properties. This material has chemists, physicists, astronomers, and materials scientists utilizing its properties in a myriad of applications. In this lecture Dr. Gash and Mr. Dean Reese will describe and demonstrate the structure, properties, and advanced applications of aerogels, and even synthesize one. Series: "Lawrence Livermore National Lab Science on Saturday" [Science] [Show ID: 17645]

The solar system formed from a cloud of interstellar gas and dust cloud about 4.6 billion years ago. Life began on earth about 3.5 billion years ago following a period of intense bombardment by asteroid fragments and comets, intense volcanism and finally development of a stable crust and a hospitable atmosphere. Thanks to more powerful telescopes and other state-of-the-art observational methods, we can now see "stellar nurseries" and young stars at various stages of formation. In this talk we’ll learn what triggers star formation in clouds, circumstellar disks and planet formation within the disks, and we’ll discuss early life on earth. Series: "Lawrence Livermore National Lab Science on Saturday" [Science] [Show ID: 17644]