Puzzling Bright Spots on Dwarf Planet Ceres

Source - NASA Science News for Feb. 27, 2015

Researchers are puzzled by a number of bright spots on Ceres, which are coming into focus as NASA's Dawn spacecraft approaches the dwarf planet.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/27feb_cerespuzzle/

Chinese Rocket Body Disintegrates over North America

Source - Space Weather News for Feb. 24, 2015: http://spaceweather.com

Last night, Feb. 23-24, observers across the western half of North America witnessed a spectacular cluster of bright lights in the sky.  It was the re-entry and disintegration of a Chinese rocket body.  Coincidentally, a geomagnetic storm was in progress at the time and more than one photographer caught the rocket's debris cutting across curtains of Northern Lights.  Visit http://spaceweather.com for photos and more information.

DID YOU MISS THE STORM? On Feb. 23-24, auroras appeared over many northern-tier US States. Did you see them?  Subscribers to our Space Weather Alert Service were notified by phone while the storm was underway.  Sign up for alerts at  http://spaceweathertext.com (text) or http://spaceweatherphone.com (voice).

Big Picture Science for Monday 23 February 2015 - Surviving the Anthropocene

Big Picture Science - Surviving the Anthropocene

The world is hot, and getting hotter. But higher temperatures aren’t the only impact our species is having on mother Earth. Urbanization, deforestation, and dumping millions of tons of plastic into the oceans … these are all ways in which humans are leaving their mark.

So are we still in the Holocene, the geological epoch that started a mere 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age? Some say we’ve moved on to the age of man – the Anthropocene.

It’s the dawn of an era, but can we survive this new phase in the history of our planet?

Guests:

• Pat Porter – Relative
• Jonathan Amos – Science writer for the BBC in London
• Gaia Vince – Writer, broadcaster, former editor for New Scientist, news editor of Nature, and author of Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made
• David Grinspoon – Astrobiologist, senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona
• Francisco Valero – Emeritus physicist and research scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Surviving_the_Anthropocene
You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Unusual Comet Passes by the Sun

Source - Space Weather News for Feb. 20, 2015: http://spaceweather.com

Astronomers are scratching their heads over an unusual comet that is passing by the sun.  The icy visitor to the inner solar system does not belong to any known family of sungrazing comets, and it appeared to be doomed as it made its plunge toward the sun on Feb. 19th.  Instead of disintegrating, however, the comet has emerged apparently intact, and could become a target for telescopes on Earth when it emerges from the sun's glare in the weeks ahead.

Images and updates may be found on http://spaceweather.com.

Big Picture Science for Monday 16 February 2015 - Sesquicentennial Science

Big Picture Science - Sesquicentennial Science

Today, scientists are familiar to us, but they weren’t always. Even the word “scientist” is relatively modern, dating from the Victorian Era.

And it is to that era we turn as we travel to the University of Notre Dame to celebrate the 150^th anniversary of its College of Science with a show recorded in front of a live audience.

Find out how the modern hunt for planets around other stars compares to our knowledge of the cosmos a century and a half ago. Also how faster computers have ushered in the realm of Big Data.

And a science historian describes us what major science frontiers were being crossed during the era of Charles Darwin and germ theory.

It’s then versus now on Sesquicentennial Science!

Recorded at the Eck Center at the University of Notre Dame, February 4th, 2015

Guests:

• Justin Crepp – Professor of physics, University of Notre Dame
• Nitesh Chawla – Professor of computer science and engineering and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Sciences and Applications at Notre Dame
• John Durant – Historian of science, director of the MIT Museum

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Sesquicentennial_Science

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory

Source - Space Weather News for Feb.12, 2015: http://spaceweather.com

For years, space weather forecasters have worried about the aging ACE spacecraft, which provides early warnings of CMEs and other solar storms bearing down on Earth. Launched in 1997, ACE could fail at any moment, leaving us blind to incoming storms. On Feb. 11th, NOAA, NASA and the US Air Force launched a replacement--The Deep Space Climate Observatory.

Read all about it on http://spaceweather.com

Big Picture Science for Monday 09 February 2015 - Skeptic Check: Your Inner Lab Coat

Big Picture Science - Skeptic Check: Your Inner Lab Coat

Sherlock Holmes doesn’t have a science degree, yet he thinks rationally – like a scientist. You can too! Learn the secrets of being irritatingly logical from the most famous sleuth on Baker Street. Plus, discover why animal trackers 100,000 years ago may have been the first scientists, and what we can learn from about deductive reasoning from today’s African trackers.

Also, the author of a book on teaching physics to your dog provides tips for unleashing your inner scientist, even if you hated science in school.

And newly-minted scientists imagine classes they wish were available to them as grad students, such as “You Can’t Save the World 101.”

Guests:

• Louis Liebenberg – Co-founder and Executive Director of Cybertracker Conservation, associate of human evolutionary biology, Harvard University
• Maria Konnikova – Psychologist, journalist and author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. Her weekly blog on psychology is at newyorker.com.
• Chad Orzel – Physicist and astronomer at Union College, and author of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog and Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist
• And newly-minted scientists Michael Kemp, Toni Lyn Morelli, Ilona Kotlewska, and Yonatan Lipsitz

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Skeptic_Check_Your_Inner_Lab_Coat

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.

Mud Matters

Source - NASA Science News for Feb. 6, 2015

NASA has launched a new satellite to study water, not in oceans or lakes, but in the soil beneath our feet. This often overlooked repository of water can have big effects on weather, climate, drought and agriculture.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/06feb_smap/

A companion video is posted below and can also be viewed at: http://youtu.be/ToO-tS-X2U4



License: Standard YouTube License

A Close Encounter with Jupiter

Source - NASA Science News for Feb. 6, 2015

This weekend, Jupiter is at its biggest, brightest, and closest to Earth for all of 2015.

The complete article can be found here: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/04feb_jupiter/

Big Picture Science for Monday 02 February 2015 - Digging Our Past

Big Picture Science - Digging Our Past

ENCORE: What’s past is prologue. For centuries, researchers have studied buried evidence – bones, teeth, or artifacts – to learn about murky human history, or even to investigate vanished species. But today’s hi-tech forensics allow us to analyze samples dug from the ground faster and at a far more sophisticated level.

First, the discovery of an unknown species of dinosaur that changes our understanding of the bizarre beasts that once roamed North America.

And then some history that’s more recent: two projects that use the tools of modern chemistry and anthropology to deepen our understanding of the slave trade.

Plus, an anthropologist on an evolutionary habit that is strange to some, but nonetheless common all over the world: the urge to eat dirt.

Guests:

• Scott Sampson – Paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and author of Dinosaur Odyssey: Fossil Threads in the Web of Life
• Fatimah Jackson – Biologist, anthropologist, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, director of the Cobb Lab at Howard University, and advisor to EUROTAST
• Joseph Jones – Biological anthropologist, visiting assistant professor at the College of William and Mary, researcher on the African Burial Ground Project
• Sera Young – Research scientist, division of Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University, and author of Craving Earth: Understanding Pica—the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice, and Chalk

This encore podcast was first released on August 12, 2013

Permalink: http://radio.seti.org/episodes/Digging_Our_Past

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://radio.seti.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.