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The early 20th century Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration brought the whole of civilization to the last unexplored continent on Earth. Names like Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, and Roald Amundsen became immortalized when each raced to be the first person to the South Pole. While honor and ego often butted heads during this era it can't overshadow the amount of skill required to reach this alien landscape. This was best demonstrated by the legendary captain Frank Worsley of Shackleton's Endurance expedition where Worsley's skills at navigating the sea and sky saved the entire crew. These first Antarctic adventures ultimately led to major implications for science including proof of continental drift, access to the oldest ice cores on Earth, and an open international approach to science that has transcended geopolitics to this day. But with the continent of Antarctica now under the fold of civilization Ultima Thule could no longer be found on Earth; it was only in the early 20th century when concept was firmly set in the sky. (16/29)

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Over the last couple of episodes we explored how humans pushed out of Africa into the rest of the world including the Americas. In this episode I recap how the climate changed over the last 100,000 years and shaped human survival. Overall, the Earth continued to descend into a much colder and drier climate than humans had ever experienced creating ice sheets five times thicker than the world's tallest building. But as the Milankovitch Cycles shifted and began warming the Earth again a strange re-cooling period called the Younger Dryas occurred, but what was the cause? We also explore when the last time humans lived in a climate as warm as today - The Eemian interglacial period. How was the world similar or different than it is today? In the final part of this episode I go all the way back to the origin of hominins and their tools over 3 million years ago and glimpse on how the climate played a role in the origins of what makes us human. (15/29)

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In the last episode we focused on humanity's efforts to leave Africa over the last 100,000 years. In this episode we continue to see how humans went on to populate every corner of the Earth, particularly the Americas as the first Americans came over in numbers as low as a couple-dozen. These were the first humans to truly take on the Arctic and learned to call it their home... but there was a break in culture and a new younger culture embraced the warming world of a Milankovitch summer. What is known about humanity's trip to America? How early did it begin? And how did the Milankovitch Cycles continue to play a role? We dive in to all of this and more in the last episode of 100,000 Years of Diaspora. (14/29)

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In the last few episodes we've explore the Milankovitch Cycles and have come to understand how they impact the Humid Sahara discussed in the first episode of Ultima Thule. In this episode we go back only one eccentricity cycle ago - 100,000 years (or so) - and see what the world was like then for humans and how the Humid Sahara played an integral role to humans pushing their way out of Africa. We explore how time and again humans left Africa and died out... so what happened in order to make us successful outside of our mother continent? It turns out the the Milankovitch Cycles played an essential role to it all. We also come to understand what the L3 haplotype is and how it tells us what humans will do in order to survive... (13/29)

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In the last episode we discussed the origins of climate science and how it came to give us insight into the climate of Earth's deep past. The climate trends discovered through science actually confirmed a mathematical theory of climate by a man who dedicated his life to the subject decades before climate science existed. Milutin Milankovitch had predicted the impact of the deep seasons of Earth - the precession, obliquity, and eccentricity - which together are now called the Milankovitch Cycles. He did this by studying the impact the Sun would have on the Earth based on its tilt, wobble, and position around the Sun. It was only after he died that Milankovitch's theory was vindicated by core and rock samples collected around the world proving his life's work was not in vain. But how was it that Milankovitch saw what no one else around the world could? In order to begin to get an idea we have to see the Earth and our place in it from a completely different perspective... (12/29)

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How many seasons does the Earth have? If you think it's only four then this episode is for you. It turns out that the Earth has several deep seasons that span for tens-of-thousands-of-years at a time. Ultimately these deep seasons play an integral role on the Earth's climate. But how much of a role and how do we know? In this episode learn about the science used to confirm Earth's weather and climate by using the last 2,000 years of recorded history to compare human records with the natural records found in the trees, ice, and rocks of the Earth. We also dedicate some time to challenges to climate science including their origin and evolution. (11/29)

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In this episode we conclude the chapter "To The Ends Of The Earth" by focusing on the island of Greenland. Greenland became a final frontier for humanity and one explorer was at the forefront of helping map and study it - Peter Freuchen. Not only would Freuchen go on to routinely defy death in one of the most lethal landscapes on Earth but he would establish a trading post there called Thule, in honor of that mythical land of Pytheas. But Thule would go on to become much more, a critical American military base for a top secret project at the height of the Cold War. Somewhere hidden in the glaciers atop the Greenland tundra was the nerve center for Project Iceworm, an effort to make a secret network of under-ice tunnels made to shuttle nuclear warheads hidden from aerial view. It was only in the 1990s that this top secret project was finally revealed to the public. (10/29)

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In this episode we continue to explore the global scientific effort of working together across boundaries in order to better understand our place in the Universe. While the 1760s Transit of Venus (explored in the last episode) did bring scientists together regardless of nationality that level of global collaboration didn't occur again for over 100 years. As explorers from across Europe attempted to understand the Arctic isolated missions brought home precious little data, and that was if they were lucky. Many never came home. These polar expeditions were known to have their ships stuck in the ice for years leaving the crew stranded on the ocean ice. It took the leader of one such expedition to nearly lose his entire crew in order to bring the international scientific community together again for the benefit of humanity. In this episode we explore Carl Weyprecht's vision for the world and how it came true with the International Polar Years and the International Geophysical Year. (9/29)

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Today, we take what we know about the sky for granted but for most of humanity it was a mysterious black abyss. Just like an eclipse a new object appearing in the sky became associated with all sorts of good and bad omens. So when was it that we collectively began to understand the heavens? In her amazing book, Chasing Venus, Andrea Wulf makes a case that it truly began in the 1760s when scientists from all over the world came together to work together, even between warring nations, so that they could answer an age-old question - how far away is the Sun from the Earth? And the only theorized way to do this was to have eyes ready and waiting all over the planet to glimpse Venus crossing the face of the Sun. They traveled as far as Siberia, St. Helena, South Africa, California, and even Tahiti. Wulf brought this nearly forgotten story back from obscurity and I add some further insight that I found researching these historic figures. This episode is proof that astronomers can and do have an adventurous side. (8/29)

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In the last couple of episodes we focused on how we understood time in terms of the Sun and the Moon, using them to guide us through the annual seasons and celebrating their solstices and equinoxes. But there are other seasons as well - deep seasons - that take thousands of years for just a single cycle. In this episode we focus on the deep season of the precession, how it was discovered, and how it changes our sky. While we can trick ourselves into believing the sky above is static, one only needs to go as far back as the Roman Empire to find a powerful civilization that did not look toward Polaris as their north star - but instead a star called Kochab. How could the sky change so much that the north star wasn't even the same less than 2,000 years ago? Finally, we look at what Earth was like 26,000 years ago - the last time the Earth's precession was in its current spot pointing out toward Polaris. This is the first episode dedicated to the deep seasons of Earth and their subtle, yet powerful, impact. (7/29)

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