Join Michele Woodland of the Maria Mitchell Association as she discusses the zodiacal light. The zodiacal light is a cone of light in the sky visible after twilight from late February to early May, peaking around the vernal equinox on March 20th. The zodiacal light is caused by light from the Sun reflecting off of dust grains surrounding the sun in the inner solar system. 

Joanna Roache and Dr. Regina Jorgenson sit and talk about  Dr. Jorgenson’s role with the Maria Mitchell Association as the Director of Astronomy. Dr Jorgenson also talks about all the cool stuff happening in our very own Nantucket sky and things that we can see for ourselves in the upcoming few months.  You can find out more at mariamitchell.org/programs-for-all

Fiona Powers Ozyurt of the Maria Mitchell Association discusses Charles Messier and the world-wide Messier Marathon at night the weekend before the new moon Tuesday March 21st.  

This week host Joanna Roche talks with PhD botanists Jacob Suissa and Benjamin Edward Goulet-Scott of Let's Botanize, democratizing the study of plant biology.  Follow @letsbotanize on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. 

Join Michele Woodland of the Maria Mitchell Association as she discusses the asteroid 2011 AG5. A few weeks ago asteroid 2011 AG5 came within 1.1 million miles of Earth. This asteroid is one of many Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that scientists track to make sure they pose no threat to Earth. 

Joanna Roche and Dr. Rich Blundell Sit talk and talk about  Dr. Blundell's first six months on Nantucket, the life of Maria Mitchell, and his Earth Walk & Talk which is walk through the history of planet Earth.  You can find out more at mariamitchell.org/programs-for-all

Listeners may know that Maria Mitchell was an advocate for bringing more imagination, beauty and poetry (also known as art) into the sciences. Her perspective is manifesting this summer as a special Oika Art exhibition that will culminate at the MMA gallery at 33 Washington Street and as outdoor installations around the island.

 Over the past several weeks, we’ve been interviewing the cohort of artists who will be exhibiting their work. You can see links to these previous episodes in chronological order here:

 Robert Peters
Part1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000580329288

Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000581050001 

 Rita Leduc
Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000585550872

Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000586615639

 Dena Haden

Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000591603340

Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000592752374

 Dakota Clearwater Lacroix

Part 1: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000597616011 

Part 2: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nature-of-nantucket/id1603111080?i=1000598895019

 This week we pick up our exploration of how art and the lived-experience of nature can help us heal people, places and planet. We talk about the process and philosophy of the multi-media artist Dakota Clearwater Lacroix, more specifically about Oika and how Maria Mitchell was an ancestor of Oika thinking. See more of Dakota's work here https://dakotalacroix.com/ 

Join Michele Woodland of the Maria Mitchell Association as she discusses the star Sirius. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, can currently be seen after 7pm in the southeastern part of the sky. Sirius can be found by using the three stars in Orion's belt to point to it. 

Join Joanna Roche on this week’s episode of the Nature of Nantucket podcast as she sits down with former NASA astronaut and US Navy Captain (Ret.), Daniel Bursch, to talk about his Nantucket roots. Bursch is a former Naval Flight Officer and astronaut.  He completed four missions to space, including a 196-day mission to the International Space Station from December 2001 to June 2002 as a flight engineer on Expedition 4. He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1979, the US Naval Test Pilot School in 1984 and the Naval Postgraduate School in 1991. He is married to Sharon Yencharis and they have four children, and two grandchildren. He grew up in the Northeast and spent his summers as a child on Nantucket. His hobbies include working on cars, fixing anything and weaving lightship baskets. He retired from the Aerospace Corporation in September 2019.

Fiona Powers Ozyurt of the Maria Mitchell Association discusses the new NASA  James Webb Space Telescope image of the region known as Pandora’s Cluster, located four billion light years away from Earth.