SparkDialog

Why haven’t we found life on other planets yet? Perhaps it’s because we are some of the first life to develop in the Universe. I talk to Dr. Avi Loeb, chair of the astronomy department at Harvard, about the possibility that life may be much more common in the distant future around small, dim, and colder stars.Can we find life around these dim stars now? The search is on!

Jupiter is a mystery, but that’s about to change.  The spacecraft Juno has traveled billions of miles across the void of space to pay Jupiter a visit, and will finally begin to shed some light on this unique planet, letting us peer beneath the clouds, see what lies behind that Great Red Spot, and even answer the question – what is the core of Jupiter made of?  But it’s a perilous journey, and Juno had to be built to withstand it.  I paid NASA/JPL a visit on the evening of the 4th of July, 2016, when Juno was set to enter into orbit around Jupiter.

Special thanks to NASA/JPL, Michelle Thaller, Heidi Becker, Gary Napier, Scott Bolton, Rick Nybakken, Steve Levin, Randii Wessen, Jim Green,  AdamSak.com, along with Stephanie Smith and the rest of the NASA Social Team.

Are humans the only species that use language?  Perhaps not.  Today we talk to Jeremy Karnowski from the University of California at San Diego, who talks about how dolphins communicate, how they can call to each other by name, and even answering the question – do dolphins gossip?

Ever dream of traveling to the stars? This dream may not be as far away as you think. Today we talk to Dr. Philip Lubin, who tells us about a radical new idea to get to the stars, recently funded by the Breakthrough Foundation.

Gamma ray bursts are some of the most powerful explosions we know of, ones that we can literally see from across the Universe.  But they are extremely short – lasting only a few milliseconds to a few minutes.  What could cause such an explosion?  Today, Dr. Rodolfo Barniol Duran, a theoretical astrophysicist at Purdue, talks to us about what we know about these mysterious explosions.   

Most times, astronomy is limited to passively observing. But not this time. Today, Dr. Dylan Spaulding, a project scientist at UC Davis in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science, talks with us about how he creates high velocity impacts in the lab with a canon, and what this can tell us about planet formation.

Wonder what it is like to sleep on an ice sheet, or melt ice to have water? Dr. Shasta Marrero, from the University of Edinburgh School of GeoSciences, talks with us about her visit to Antarctica, and what the ice shelf can tell us about changing global temperatures.