The 365 Days of Astronomy

Recorded at the Astronomical League's 2016 convention in Alexandria, Virginia.

Dr. Harold A. Geller ( @AstroBioProf / http://spacs.gmu.edu/profile/harold-geller/ ) is Observatory Director and Associate Professor at George Mason University (GMU).

On the 20th day of August, 1975, the Viking 1 spacecraft was launched into space towards Mars. On the 19th day of June, 1976, the Viking 1 spacecraft reached the planet Mars. The Viking 1 Lander was to set down on the surface of Mars for the bicentennial celebration in the USA. Unfortunately, due to the ruggedness of the original chosen landing site, the Viking 1 Lander did not land on the surface of Mars until July 20th, which marked the 7th anniversary since the landing on the Moon. The robotic arm of the Viking 1 Lander malfunctioned, and, in spite of an onboard computer with only 64K of RAM, the computer was re-programmed to extend the robotic arm so that on the 28th of July, 1976, we reached out and touched the surface of Mars. Dr. Geller discusses the Viking mission to Mars and the incredible part it was to play in his own life on Earth.

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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

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While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

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Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

How can the night sky redescribed to someone who can’t see it? What’s it like to do astronomy? What kind of feelings come into play? I discuss these questions and more in today’s Ask a Spaceman!

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Music by Jason Grady and Nick Bain. Thanks to WCBE Radio for hosting the recording session and Cathy Rinella for editing.

Hosted by Paul M. Sutter, who is a legit scientist (http://www.pmsutter.com)

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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vuEarGPfoI

Streamed live Dec 7, 2016.

We're fitting one more episode in before Fraser heads off to Costa Rica for a week! Come and hear about the debate on whether there could be life on Mars, and what that would mean for Earth.

So sure, Enceladus & Europa are all the rage these days, but classic Mars is still a great place to search for life. In fact, ESA's ExoMars is scanning the planet's atmosphere for methane right now, searching for evidence that there might be life there. Let's talk about the search for life on the Red Planet.

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006.

Today's 2 topics:

- Eric Christensen, Director of the Catalina Sky Survey, wrote a blog entry back in April titled "Is it just me or are asteroids more dangerous than they used to be?" http://blog.asteroidday.org/2016/04/08/is-it-just-me-or-are-asteroids-more-dangerous-than-they-used-to-be/

- About 66 million years ago the Chicxulub meteor hit the Yucatan ending the reign of the dinosaurs. The European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling has set up a drilling station that has drilled down through 2,000 feet of limestone & sediment to find pink granite that was apparently thrown up from deeper when the impact happened, forming a "peak ring."

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

https://youtu.be/2_KdfFHbeq4?t=2h31m12s

Streamed live on Apr 26, 2015.

Frank O'Brien ( http://www.apolloguidancecomputer.com/ ), an Apollo era historian and Apollo guidance system expert is our guest for this episode. Frank O’Brien’s interest in the Apollo program began as a serious amateur historian. Around 1995 or so, he began performing research and writing essays for the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, and the Apollo Flight Journal. Much of this work centered on his primary interests, the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) and the Lunar Module. These Journals are generally considered the canonical online reference on the flights to the Moon. He was then asked to assist the curatorial staff in the creation of the Cradle of Aviation Museum, on Long Island, New York, where he helped prepare the Lunar Module simulator, an LM procedure trainer and an Apollo space suit for display. He regularly lectures on the Apollo computer and related topics to diverse groups, from NASA's computer engineering conferences, the IEEE/ACM, computer festivals and university student groups.

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

At the ALCon 2016 Astronomical League Conference I chatted up Dr. Geneviève de Messières ( @demessieres ) of the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum and asked her the standard set of questions.

Dr. de Messières manages the astronomy education program at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. The keystone of the program is the Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory on the National Mall. Her enthusiastic team of staff, student employees, and dozens of volunteers regularly invite the public to become astronomers by using telescopes and engaging with hands-on astronomy activities. They also lead lectures in the Albert Einstein Planetarium, teacher workshops, and school field trips. After studying astrophysics at Swarthmore College, Dr. de Messières earned her PhD in astronomy at the University of Virginia.

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsVFmNOWohY

Streamed live on Nov 9, 2016.

Our guest is Dr. Adrienne Dove ( @astroaddie ) of SSERVI (Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute), CLASS and Assistant Professor of Physics at UCF. Along with several UCF colleagues, she has been a science advisor on the Strata-1 payload (PI Marc Fries at JSC), a microgravity regolith experiment designed to explore the long-term evolution of regolith particle size distributions and stratification in a low-gravity environment.

The focus of studies conducted by the Center for Lunar and Asteroid Surface Science for NASA SSERVI include studies of the physical properties of regolith; microgravity effects, impact ejecta, dynamics, hydration and weathering of near Earth asteroids, and charging and mobilization of dust.

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

Hosted by Ricardo García Soto ( http://www.astroblog.cl/ / @cuasar / astroetal.com ). Ricardo is a science writer & TV director.

How do planets form? What material do they form from? How can we look for life? Will we be able to find something that resembles life? In today's episode I talk with Christian Eistrup about simulations of planet formation. Christian is a P.h.D student at Leiden University. We talk about chemistry, accretion discs, what happens if we find Oxygen out there? Are there chemical reactions in planet forming regions?

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

http://www.unawe.org/kids/unawe1626/

Astronomers used the SMA radio telescope array and the Chandra X-ray space telescope to take a multispectral composite image of an object called Cygnus X-3. So the image they got is both radio and X-ray combined.

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPjcB7luCpI  (Part 1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Ejlo8RE74  (Part 2)

Streamed live November 25th & December 5th.

Landing on the surface of Mars is very difficult. In fact, it's possibly the toughest planet to land on in the whole solar system. Today we're going to talk about what it going to take to get to and from the Red Planet.

Do go visit http://astrogear.spreadshirt.com/ for cool Astronomy Cast and CosmoQuest t-shirts, coffee mugs and other awesomeness!

http://cosmoquest.org/Donate This show is made possible through your donations.

Thank you! (Haven't donated? It's not too late! Just click!)

The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by Astrosphere New Media. http://www.astrosphere.org/

Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at [email protected].

While you're at it, do support our Learning Space educator training program by going to this site:

https://www.patreon.com/LearningSpace

Please help us keep training the trainers! Learning Space is a weekly G+ Hangout on Air about topics in astronomy education, outreach and other ways to share science both in the school setting and outside it. We bring you interviews, hands-on demonstrations, lists of our favorite educational resources and more!