Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Decades after we last set foot on the Moon, and several years after the Space Shuttle was retired, space activity is finally leaving the doldrums.  Permanent bases on the Moon and Mars are now within reach, and a new Space Race is brewing, with Asian countries ascendant. Dr. Impey (University of Arizona) reviews the history and landmarks of the international space program, gives a snapshot of the current situation, and plots the trajectory of the future of space travel.  Recorded on Feb. 15, 2017.  (Dr. Impey has written a book with the same title as this talk.)

 Where is the best place to find living life beyond Earth? It may be that the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn harbor some of the most habitable real estate in our Solar System. Life loves liquid water and these moons have lots of it!  Such oceans worlds have likely persisted for much of the history of the solar system, and as a result they are compelling targets for our exploration. Dr. Kevin Hand (of the Jet Propulsion Lab) explains the science behind our understanding of these worlds, with a special focus on Jupiter’s intriguing moon Europa, which is a top priority for future NASA missions.   Dr. Hand is also the author of a popular-level book "Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space."  (Recorded Apr. 10, 2019.)Dr. Hand is a planetary scientist at JPL in Pasadena, California and the Director of its Ocean Worlds Lab. His research focuses on the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the solar system with an emphasis on Europa.  From 2011 to 2016, Hand served as Deputy Chief Scientist for Solar System Exploration at JPL. His work has brought him to the Dry Valleys of Antarctica, the sea ice near the North Pole, the depths of the Earth’s oceans, and to the glaciers of Kilimanjaro. Dr. Hand was a scientist onboard James Cameron’s 2012 dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, and he was part of a 2003 IMAX expedition to hydrothermal vents in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. 

The NASA Kepler mission revealed that our Galaxy is teeming with planetary systems and that Earth-sized planets are common.  However, most of the planets detected by Kepler orbit stars too faint to permit detailed study. The NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS,) launched in 2018, is finding hundreds of small planets orbiting stars that are much closer and brighter.  Dr. Dressing (Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley) describes the TESS mission and explain how analyses of the TESS planets allows us to probe the composition of small planets, investigate the formation of planetary systems, and set the stage for the next phase of exoplanet exploration: the quest for the signatures of life in the atmospheres of strange new worlds.

The Vera Rubin Observatory will house a survey telescope that will image the night sky faster and deeper than ever before. Its camera, at 3.6 Gigapixels, will be the biggest digital camera ever built. The Rubin Observatory will be able to image the entire visible sky every few nights, and build up, over 10 years, a 900-frame full color movie of the deep night sky. This will enable a wide variety of scientific explorations, from the outer reaches of our Solar System, through our Milky Way Galaxy and its dark matter halo, and out into the extra-galactic universe, where we hope to see new types of cosmic explosions and the weird effects of the mysterious Dark Energy.  Dr. Phil Marshall (of Stanford University) gives a guided tour of the  Observatory, describes the planned sky survey, discusess the challenges of doing astronomy at petabyte scale, and shows how we can all take part in Rubin's voyage of discovery.  

Prof. Jim Bell (of Arizona State University), who is a key leader in projects to take images with NASA's rovers on Mars, discusses the history and current state of our exploration of the red planet.  He summarizes the scientific findings from the Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and Perseverance missions. He puts each mission into the larger context of the questions we are asking -- both about Mars today and about ancient Mars, which could have been far more hospitable for life.

A bird that mimicked a black hole. The astronomer that discovered microwave ovens. A telescope that got shot. The science of astronomy is filled with true stories (and tall tales) of the adventures and misadventures that accompany our exploration of the universe. Dr. Levesque, who interviewed over 100 astronomers for her well-reviewed popular book, The Last Stargazers,  takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of life as a professional astronomer. We learn about some of the most powerful telescopes in the world and their cutting-edge discoveries, meet the people behind the science, and explore the crucial role of human curiosity and innovation in the past, present, and future of scientific discovery.  (Recorded on Oct. 20, 2021)Emily Levesque is an astronomy professor at the University of Washington.  She has observed for upwards of fifty nights on many of the planet’s largest telescopes and flown over the Antarctic stratosphere in an experimental aircraft for her research. 

Craig Venter & Daniel Cohen suggested that if the 20th century was the century of physics, the 21st century will be the century of biology on our planet.  Jill Tarter believes that their idea will be extended beyond the surface of our world, and that we may soon have the first opportunity to study biology that developed on other worlds.  In this lecture, recorded in 2017, she talks about her vision of the future of understanding life on Earth and beyond our planet.  And she discusses projects that are underway and are planned to learn more about the possibility of intelligent life among the stars.  The talk also celebrated the publication of the book "Making Contact" (by Sarah Scoles) about Jill Tarter's life and work.

By measuring the rapid orbits of the stars near the center of our galaxy, Dr. Andrea Ghez of UCLA and her colleagues have moved the case for a supermassive black hole at the heart of our Milky Way Galaxy from a possibility to a certainty.  She reports on her pioneering observations of stars near our galaxy's center (that orbit the monster black hole) and discusses some of the surprising results this work has led to.  The talk was recorded in January 2017; in 2020, Dr. Ghez won the Nobel Prize in physics for this work.

After encountering Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft, for the first time flew by a member of the Kuiper Belt of icy objects beyond Neptune.  This particular object, informally named “Ultimate Thule” (meaning the farthest place beyond the known world,) turned out to be a “contact binary” – two smaller icy worlds stuck together. Dr. Jeff Moore, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center,  shares an insider’s view (with great images) of how the mission got there and what we learned at Ultima Thule.  This talk was recorded Oc.t 19, 2019.  Since then this object has been given the official name Arrokoth.

Black holes are one of the most remarkable predictions of Einstein's theory of gravity: so much material is compressed into such a small volume that nothing, not even light, can escape.  In Spring 2019, the world-wide Event Horizon Telescope released the first real picture of gas around a massive black hole and the “shadow” it makes as the gas swirls into the black hole.  Dr. Quataert (University of California, Berkeley) describes how these pioneering observations were made and what they have taught us about black holes.Recorded on Jan. 22, 2020