Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures
EinsteinòÀÙs Blunder Undone: The Runaway Universe
November 11, 2015
Dr. Robert Kirshner (Harvard University)
Listen (mp3 file, 43.2 MB)
In the past 20 years, astronomers have shown that the universe is not only expanding, but speeding up. In this talk, Dr. Kirshner, who was in many ways the “godfather” of these investigations, discusses the methods used to discover cosmic acceleration and presents the evidence that we live in a Universe that is only 4% matter like the atoms of the periodic table.
In the Land of Enchantment: The Epic Story of the Cassini Mission to Saturn
October 7, 2015
Dr. Carolyn Porco (Imaging Team Leader for Cassini)
Listen (mp3 file, 46.9 MB)
Since 2004, Cassini has been exploring the giant planet Saturn, its magnificent ring system, and its intriguing moons. Dr. Porco shows us many of the magnificent mission images and explains the findings from both the main orbiter and the probe that landed on Titan, SaturnòÀÙs biggest moon. She also discusses the geysers on the moon Enceladus and what we have learned about the plumes that erupt.
100 Years of Einstein’s Relativity (And How it Underlies Our Modern Understanding of the Universe)
May 6, 2015
Dr. Jeffrey Bennett (University of Colorado)
Listen (mp3 file, 54.7 MB)
2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s completion of his General Theory of Relativity, the comprehensive theory of space, time, and gravity. Dr. Bennett explains the basic ideas of Einstein’s work (both the special and general theories) in everyday language and shows how Einstein’s remarkable ideas are being confirmed today by astronomical observations. He concludes with four reasons why relativity should matter to everyone.
Now Appearing at a Dwarf Planet Near You: NASA’s Dawn Mission to the Asteroid Belt
April 8, 2015
Dr. Marc Rayman (Jet Propulsion Labs)
Listen (mp3 file, 44.3 MB)
Dr. Rayman, the Mission Director for the Dawn exploration of Vesta and Ceres, explains the unusual mission (the first to orbit two different bodies in the solar system), what it found at Vesta, and what it is going to do as it gets to Ceres, the largest asteroid and the first dwarf planet discovered. He also gives a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dawn launch and the ion propulsion that allows it to visit multiple targets.
The Sentinel Mission: Finding the Asteroid Headed for Earth
March 4, 2015
Dr. Ed Lu (Former NASA Astronaut; CEO of the Sentinel Mission)
Listen (mp3 file, 46.8 MB)
Asteroids, which hit our planet at least twice each year, are the only natural disaster for which we have a technological solution. We are all living with the threat of a 3-minute experience that could transform our lives and our planet forever. Scientists have found 10,000 Near-Earth Objects, yet there are an estimated one million in our inner solar system, and the vast majority of the threatening ones are still undiscovered. In this non-technical talk, Ed Lu describe the threat, and discusses the Sentinel Mission, an orbiting telescope to detect and track asteroids that cross EarthòÀÙs orbit.
Pluto on the Horizon: Anticipating our First Encounter with the Double Planet
January 28, 2015
Dr. Mark Showalter (SETI Institute)
Listen (mp3 file, 39.6 MB)
The more we learn about Pluto, the more interesting it becomes. In the last decade, four tiny moons have been discovered orbiting the central “binary planet,” which consists of Pluto and its large moon Charon. Pluto itself has a thin atmosphere and shows signs of seasonal changes. On July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto and provide our first close-up look at these distant worlds. Dr. Showalter, a co-investigator on the mission, describes how he discovered two of the moons of Pluto, explains what we currently know about the Pluto system, and sets the scene for the exploration that is in store.
Images of the Infant Universe: The Latest Results from the Planck Satellite
November 12, 2014
Dr. Lloyd Knox (University of California, Davis)
Listen (mp3 file, 35.5 MB)
Professor Knox leads the U.S. team determining the basic characteristics of the cosmos from the data recently acquired by the European Space AgencyòÀÙs Planck satellite. He shows the detailed images of the sky obtained by Planck, pictures made from light that has been traveling our way for nearly 14 billion years, since the universe was only a few hundred thousand years old. He further explains how such images provide us with our best means of studying events mere fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
The Copernicus Complex: Are We Special in the Cosmos?
October 8, 2014
Dr. Caleb Scharf (Columbia University)
Listen (mp3 file, 28.3 MB)
Is humanity on Earth special or unexceptional? Extraordinary discoveries in astronomy and biology have revealed a universe filled with endlessly diverse planetary systems, and a picture of life as a phenomenon intimately linked with the most fundamental aspects of physics. But just where these discoveries will lead us is not yet clear. We may need to find a way to see past the mediocre status that Copernicus assigned to us 500 years ago. Dr. Scharf helps us to come to grips with the implications of some of the latest scientific research, from the microscopic to the cosmic.
Monster Black Holes: What Lurks at the Center of Galaxies?
May 24 2014
Dr. Chung-Pei Ma (University of California, Berkeley)
Listen (mp3 file, 27.9 MB)
Black holes are among the most fascinating objects in the cosmos, in part because they can grow to monstrous size, swallowing the mass of millions or billions of suns. Dr. Ma describes recent discoveries of record-breaking black holes, each with a mass of ten billion times the mass of the Sun. New evidence shows that these objects could be the dormant remnants of powerful òÀÜquasarsòÀÝ that existed in the young universe.
Lifting the Cosmic Veil: Highlights from a Decade of the Spitzer Space Telescope
April 16, 2014
Dr. Michael Bicay (NASA Ames Research Center)
Listen (mp3 file, 36.9 MB)
As the infrared cousin to Hubble, the Spitzer Space Telescope was launched in 2003 to study the cool universe with waves that are invisible to the human eye. It can probe the birth and youth of stars and planetary disks, and study of planets orbiting other stars. Dr. Bicay describes the long road leading to Spitzer’s launch, and presents highlights from the mission’s first decade of discovery.
