Meet the Expert: Dr. Marc Kuchner, Citizen Science Officer for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Marc Kuchner is an astrophysicist and the Citizen Science Officer for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. His job is to foster citizen science at NASA; he oversees a portfolio of roughly 25 NASA-funded citizen science projects, reaching more than a million volunteers.… Continue Reading Episode 96: How Can You Help NASA to do Astronomy?
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Meet the Expert: Lou Ramon, former NASA Engineer Lou Ramon has been a “space cadet” his entire life. As a young boy, he had his own model plane “air force” hanging from his bedroom ceiling and he grew up reading and watching science fiction TV shows and movies. So it’s no wonder he ended up… Continue Reading Episode 90: How Do You Design a Space Station?
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Meet the Expert: Nils Larson, NASA Test Pilot David Nils Larson is a research test pilot at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. He is NASA’s lead pilot for the X-59 Quiet Supersonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft, and is assigned to Armstrong’s F/A-18, F-15, T-34 research and mission support aircraft and DC-8 airborne science aircraft. Larson also serves as senior advisor… Continue Reading Episode 87: Why Do Planes Make a Sonic Boom?
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Happy New Year! Jennifer and Jeff are on vacation, but don’t miss our BEST of Deep Space compilation with snippets of episodes with some of our favorite engineers and scientists! Engineer and author Suzanne Slade How Do You Have a Snowball Fight on Mars? Dr. Eric Thrane, LIGO astrophysicist How… Continue Reading Episode 86: The BEST of Deep Space
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Meet the Expert: Dr. Alan Stern, Planetary scientist and Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizon Spacecraft Dr. Alan Stern is a planetaryscientist, space program executive, aerospace consultant, and author. He leads NASA’s $880M New Horizons mission that successfully explored the Pluto system and is now exploring the Kuiper Belt—the farthest exploration in the history of… Continue Reading Episode 83: What is it Like to Fly by Pluto?
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Meet the Expert: Laurie Orth, Music Teacher and STEAM education pioneer STEAM education pioneer Laurie Orth brings together the two contrasting disciplines of space exploration and music. Creating a pipeline for young people into STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Math) educational programs through music is important to her. With over two decades teaching… Continue Reading Episode 78: How Can Music Help Us Learn About Space?
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Meet the Expert: Kirsten W. Larson, Former NASA Public Affairs Officer, now Children’s Author Kirsten used to work with rocket scientists at NASA. Now she writes books for curious kids. Kirsten is the author of WOOD, WIRE, WINGS: EMMA LILIAN TODD INVENTS AN AIRPLANE, illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Calkins Creek, 2020), A TRUE WONDER: The Comic Book Hero Who… Continue Reading Episode 75: How Does NASA Help People on the Ground?
Read MoreChallenge: Understand the structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere Use a series of boxes and stack them on top of each other. Each box represents a layer of the atmosphere. Ask yourself what takes place in these layers? (Hint: check out this link from UCAR Center for Science Education for help) Send us a picture or… Continue Reading Episode 70: Why Do Science Experiments Travel by Balloon instead of by Jet?
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Meet the Expert: Norman Black, Retired Air Force Colonel and Payload Integrator Norman Black is a seasoned and tested space systems professional with over 25 years of highly specialized technical expertise and documented success in space and satellite operations for the military and civil agencies (NASA and the National Reconnaissance Office). He is a product… Continue Reading Episode 70: Why Do Science Experiments Travel by Balloon instead of by Jet?
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Meet the Expert: Dr. Ryan MacDonald, theoretical physicist Dr. Ryan MacDonald is a theoretical astrophysicist researching exoplanet atmospheres at Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute. He develops techniques to characterize the atmospheres of these distant worlds using ground and space-based telescopes. Dr. MacDonald is currently working on modeling exoplanet atmospheres in preparation for the launch… Continue Reading Episode 69: Where are the Aliens?
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Challenge: Listen to the podcast and see if you can tell which is a black hole colliding and how close or far away it is. Did you get them right? Then look up information about a black hole or LIGO and draw a picture of gravitational waves or a black hole. With your parent’s… Continue Reading Episode 63: How Do Scientists Listen to Black Holes?
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Meet the Expert: Dr. Eric Thrane, Cosmologist and Astrophysicist Dr. Thrane is a Professor at Monash University in the School of Physics and Astronomy where he studies cosmology, astrophysics, and gravity. He specialises in astrophysical inference using data from gravitational-wave observatories to answer questions such as: how do compact binaries form, what is the fate… Continue Reading Episode 63: How Do Scientists LISTEN to Black Holes?
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