The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu

How can college students who would like to work in the space industry and at NASA get their foot in the door? And what is the purpose of the Lucy mission to the Trojan Asteroids? To get the answers to both of these questions, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Freya Holloway, a NASA L’SPACE Lab Tech at ASU.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the latest, most accurate coloration of Neptune. It turns out, the rich, deep blue Neptune we’ve come to know and love was placed by scientists to increase contrast which are no longer necessary. And Neptune is now a much lighter tone of blue, more in line with the current, turquoise coloration of Uranus.

And with that, we turn to the Lucy mission to investigate the “Trojan Asteroids” which share Jupiter’s orbit around our sun. Lucy recently did a flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh and its moon Selam, discovering that it actually not one asteroid but three distinct bodies. Freya Holloway is an ambassador for Lucy, and she explains the purpose of the flyby and brings us up to speed on where the mission is at. In December this year, Lucy will be making her second Earth gravity assist flyby to build up momentum to slingshot her towards Jupiter. And in April 2025, Lucy will encounter her second main belt asteroid, Donald Johanson. That asteroid is named for the paleontologist involved in the discovery of the Lucy fossil (the mission’s namesake) in Ethiopia in the 1970s, and who has actually been involved in the current Lucy mission.

Freya explains why the mission is aptly named. Trojan asteroids are fossils, astronomically speaking, and they may be able to teach us something about the birth and evolution of our solar system the same way that Lucy has taught us about early hominids and our own evolution.

You’ll learn all about this unique population of asteroids, which are far less familiar to most people than either the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter or the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. One group precedes Jupiter in its orbit around the sun and the other orbits behind, and both groups are relatively pristine and date back to the origins of our solar system.

In this episode, we have a special set of questions for Freya that all come from students who attend Notre Dame Academy on Staten Island. First up, Isabella wants to know who Freya’s favorite scientist is, and also, does she have a favorite song to listen to while studying. Freya tells us about Dr. Eugene Parker, the heliophysicist who predicted the existence of the solar wind and after whom the Parker Solar Probe and the “The Parker Instability” is named. For the second part, Freya listens to David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” as a pick me up for long study sessions.

For the first time in the history of The LIUniverse, Charles then brings up a second joyfully cool cosmic thing: the recent meteor (a bolide) that broke up over Germany whose pieces have been collected, many by students! It turns out that Freya collects meteorites, although none which she found on her own. Her favorite is the lunar meteorite she keeps on display at home.

The next question from Notre Dame Academy comes from Caitlin Sweeney, who asks Freya, “What’s the coolest thing about labs in college?” Freya describes how, compared to high school, labs in college are her favorite part of college and are much more interactive.

Another Notre Dame Academy students asks, “What was the biggest challenge you overcame and how did you learn from it?” For Freya, that was finding her place in the academic and professional world. She tells the story of how in 2015, she was a single mom with two young children, one of whom was 8 and just diagnosed with leukemia who lost her job she loved in finance at the Columbus Ohio Zoo. She made the decision to show her children that no matter what life throws at us, we can still be who we want to be, and she enrolled in college and embarked on an entirely new direction.

As a student, Freya applied for and went through the NASA L’SPACE Program (Lucy Student Pipeline Accelerator and Competency Enabler), a workforce development program that consists of two academies. In one, the Mission Concept Academy, students work as a team to complete a mission task. In the other academy, students will work as a team to introduce new technology ideas to NASA. NASA chooses a winner each semester and gives them a $10,000 seed fund to develop the idea. After completing the Academies, Freya became an intern on the Lucy mission. She began as a Lucy ambassador, and then came back to serve as an outreach mentor and a student success advisor.

If you’re a student of at least 18 years of age and enrolled in a US college or university and you’d like to learn more about NASA’s L’SPACE Program, visit their website at lspace.asu.edu. You can follow them on Instagram @l_spaceprogram, where Freya helps manage the account, or at NASA L’SPACE Program on LinkedIn and Facebook.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Neptune calibrated in true color – NASA w/ color by Ardenau4, Public domain

– Neptune in exaggerated color – NASA, Public Domain

– Uranus in true color – NASA w/ color by Ardenau4, Public domain

– The Lucy spacecraft – NASA, public domain

– Dinkinesh and its moon Selam – NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL, public domain

– The Lucy fossil – 120 on Wikimedia commons, CC BY 2.5

– Diagram of the main belt and Trojan asteroids –  Mdf at English Wikipedia, Public Domain

– Dr. Eugene Parker in 2018 – NASA, public domain

– Model of the Parker Solar Probe – NASA, public domain

– A bolide in the sky – Thomas Grau, Public Domain

#TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast #FreyaHolloway #Lucy #Neptune #Uranus #Dinkinesh #Selam #TrojanAsteroids #Jupiter #EugeneParker #ParkerSolarProbe #ParkertInstability #asteroid #bolide #meteorite #L'SPACE #NASA #NotreDameAcademy #MissionConceptAcademy

Welcome to the Season 3 premiere of The LIUniverse, your happy half-hour dose of cosmic conversation and geeky banter with host Dr. Charles Liu! In this episode, Chuck and co-host Allen Liu welcome back Dr. Jimmy Negus, who was our guest on our very first episode, to talk about Solar Flares, “Deep Space Nine,” and more.

As some of you may remember, Jimmy was only a PhD candidate back then, with his research focused on active galactic nuclei, including black holes, quasars and more. Now that he’s got his doctorate, Jimmy has pivoted to studying solar physics, which is the perfect lead in to discuss the upcoming Great American Eclipse, the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024 that has them – and the rest of America – buzzing with excitement.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s “Joyfully Cool Cosmic Thing” – the discovery of a pulsar in a binary system with an unknown and mysterious object that seems to be somewhere between the mass of a neutron star and a black hole by astronomers using the radio telescopes in the MeerKAT array in the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO). Jimmy explains that the leading theory may be that it is a smaller mass black hole than we’ve yet observed that was created by the collision of two neutron stars. Special thanks to our friends at the All Things Unexplained podcast (@allthingsunexplained) for bringing today’s JCCT to our attention!

Our first question of the day – and the season! – comes from audience member Makalya, who asks, “What are the chances of having black holes consume each other, becoming giant black holes, and slowly start growing from there?”

Pretty high, it turns out. Dr. Negus explains how we use gravitational waves to deduce the frequency of black hole mergers in the universe. If we look across the entire observable universe, there are between 200,000-400,000 mergers EVERY YEAR! Of course, that includes all types of black holes. If we’re only looking Jimmy estimates only about 10% of that number are collisions of supermassive black holes. And we’ve got a little while before that happens to our supermassive black hole, which will someday collide with Andromeda’s – something on the order of 4 billion years or so.

Moving on, Jimmy tells us about his new gig at The University of Colorado, Boulder, where he stayed on as a research faculty member after getting his PhD. He’s now analyzing, calibrating and validating data from NOAA’s GOES-18 satellite (GOES is a suite of Geostationary, Environmental Operational Satellites, the longest running continuous stream of satellites, first launched in 1974.) In addition to its weather-sensing technology that points down at the Earth, the satellite carries X-ray and UV sensors that point towards the sun to track space weather.

Next up, we turn to the impending Solar Max period of our solar cycle, where the magnetic field of the sun completely flips every 11 years. Jimmy discusses the 2025 peak of the solar cycle, how solar emissions like X-Class Solar Flares can impact us. Charles points out that previous solar maxes have even taken down satellites, and Jimmy describes various ways we work to mitigate the damage from the next flare.

Speaking of which, for our next question Shana asks whether a solar flare can set her phone on fire. Jimmy explains why we’re not in danger here on Earth, thanks to technological advancements, but that a satellite disruption could disrupt service temporarily. He describes the Carrington Event of September 1859 during solar cycle 10, which was the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded, and actually caused some telegraph wires to burst into flame.

Finally, Chuck turns our focus to our obsession with science fiction. We revisit “The Expanse,” which Jimmy just finished watching, and while good, “certainly wasn’t a perfect show. It wasn’t “Deep Space Nine,” my favorite.” Chuck posits that Voyager was better, but the two wisely reserve judgment on the new Star Trek shows and sticking with the classics.

If you’d like to keep up with Dr. Jimmy Negus, you can visit his website at www.jimmynegus.com and @spacebound_negus on Instagram.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Path of the April 8 2024 eclipse through the USA – NASA SVS/ Michala Garrison, Public domain

– Radio telescopes in the MeerKAT array – Square Kilometre Array Organisation (SKAO) / South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) CC BY 3.0

– Animation of a Pulsar – NASA SVS, Public domain

– GOES-18 before launch – NOAA Satellites, Public domain

– An X-class flare in 2012 – NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Public domain

– The Solar Dynamics Observatory before launch – NASA/Jim Grossmann

#theliuniverse #charlesliu #allenliu #sciencepodcast #astronomypodcast #jamesnegus #jimmynegus #universityofcolorado #astronomy #astrophysics #totalsolareclipse #greatamericaneclipse #quasar #blackhole #activegalacticnucleus #agn #theexpanse #deepspacenine #supermassiveblackholes #solarmax #xclasssolarflares #solarcycle #neutronstar #carringtonevent #NOAA #GOES18 #satellite #MeerKAT #southafricanradioastronomyobservatory #SARAO

What happens to one sun of a binary pair if the other goes supernova? Can we mitigate the greenhouse effect? How big should a telescope be? For our Season 2 finale, we’re answering fan questions from YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. To bring those questions to life, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome two members of the LIUniverse social media team, “Vinyl Benjy” Schoenfeld, our TikTok manager, and Stacey Severn, our Social Media Director.

As always, though, we start off with the season’s final joyfully cool cosmic thing, the most recent image of Uranus by the James Webb Space Telescope. Taken using the JWST’s infrared imaging capabilities, rather than visible light, this incredibly beautiful photo of Uranus clearly shows its 7 spectacular rings and 14 moons.

Now, on to your questions! First, Stacey reads a question from YouTube fan Darker Void Scientist, who asks, “Wouldn’t some violently spinning galaxies produce strong magnetic fields that act as a barrier to some spectrum of traveling waves?”

To answer, Charles gets to discuss the Zeeman Effect and the Parker Instability. He explains that entire galaxies can’t spin fast enough, but that violent spinning does occur and produce magnetic fields closer to the supermassive black holes in the center of those galaxies.

Benjy reads our next question, from YouTube fan Mark Caesar 4443: “When stars go very near black holes and get sling-shotted around them, what would we see of them in terms of time dilation? Surely we would see them slow down as they approach the black hole, of course, that is assuming we can actually observe them.”

Chuck dives into what we would be able to perceive at all, from our perspective, and why we would see color shifts but not necessarily the impact of time dilation that the star itself would experience.

Allen tackles the next question, from Randy Starnes on Facebook, who wants to know whether we could take a rechargeable battery and use it to power a plasma rocket. Our co-host explains that while rechargeable batteries wouldn’t generate enough energy for a plasma engine, lithium-ion rechargeable batteries are used by Rocket Lab for the electric pumps on their reusable Electron rockets.

Stacey next asks another question from YouTube, from @sbkarajan: “How do NASA or anyone measure distance from the planet to the Sun? I heard for Earth they measure the distance to Mars or Venus transit using Keppler’s Third Law. Is it the only way?”

Chuck explains that when humanity was still stuck on Earth, that was the only way. But since we have more tactics at our disposal, from satellites to radar signals, to do far more accurate measurements, even at vast distances.

Next up, @frankwestphal8532 from YouTube: “What would happen to the other star in a supermassive star binary system if one of the stars ‘supernova-ed’ before the other?” It turns out that happens all of the time... and none of the outcomes tend to be good for the other star. But Frank’s not done, and his follow up question about the early universe, binary-system supernovae, and the creation of supermassive black holes is a bit of a chin-scratcher for Chuck!

Stacey’s next question comes via Instagram from our friends CJ Dearinger and Dr. Mounce on the “All Things – Unexplained” podcast: “When will astrophysics encounter/present undeniable proof of a new life form?” Predictions, obstacles, and discussion of alien cryptids ensue.

In another Instagram question, Ben Jordans asks, “How do you perceive the current efforts to mitigate the greenhouse effect? Are you of the opinion that we will succeed in mastering this problem, and if so, how?”

Chuck explains the greenhouse effect, on Earth as well as on Venus and Mars, and the difference between the effect itself and human involvement in it. He and Allen disagree as to how long it might take to redress the problem, while Stacey and Benjy jump in with their more pessimistic concerns about climate change, extreme weather, and the future.

Benjy gets the last question, from @emiliotorres2718 on YouTube: “How do we go about deciding how big we want a telescope to be? Is it simply the bigger the telescope we make, the farther we’ll be able to see into the universe?”

Chuck says the simple answer is yes, but the actual answer is more complicated. To hear it, you’ll have to watch or listen in to the final episode of Season 2 of The LIUniverse!

We hope you enjoy The LIUniverse, and, if so, please support us on Patreon. We’ll return for Season 3 in 2024.

Image Credits:

–Uranus and moons by JWST – NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Public Domain

–Time-lapse of stars near Milky Way’s central black hole – ESO/MPE, CC BY 4.0

–Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket – NASA Kennedy Space Center / Rocket Lab, Public Domain

–The Hobby–Eberly Telescope – Zereshk, CC BY 3.0

–3D model of Parker Solar Probe – NASA, Public Domain

–Chandra X-ray Observatory on the Space Shuttle – NASA, Public Domain

–Hubble photo of Saturn in UV light – NASA, Public Domain

Welcome to Part 2 of our interview with father and daughter team Franklin Chang-Diaz, NASA astronaut and founder of the Ad Astra Rocket Company™, and Miranda Chang, Ad Astra’s Global Communications Director.

We pick up where we left off, with a focus on fathers working with their children! Host Charles Liu shares how much he loves doing The LIUniverse with his co-host and son Allen, while Franklin talks about how important Miranda is to the running of Ad Astra.

Then it’s on to our next question, from Ebony, who asks, “Do you believe that traveling to space can find ways to fix the problem with climate change?” Franklin begins by reminding us that we would not be aware of climate change if we were not exploring space. And then he describes how the life support system on spaceship Earth is in need of a great deal of maintenance and repair, how at some point there will be more humans than can survive on it, and how he worries that we will damage our environment to the point that our civilization won’t be healthy enough to explore space and then we will be doomed.

In Costa Rica, Ad Astra is working to transition the country to a green, hydrogen economy. Using solar and wind energy, they generate hydrogen from water, to power their fleet of hydrogen-powered vehicles and fuel cell electric buses. Miranda points out that Costa Rica’s electric grid is already nearly 100% renewable, making it a perfect based for doing test projects like these with the goal of reducing carbon.

Miranda discusses ways to make the economy of space more sustainable, too, and describes the fuel efficiency of the VX-200 VASIMIR engine (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket), their new high-power, electric in-space propulsion system that will have a thirteen-year lifespan.

Chuck asks Franklin how me made the transition from astronaut to environmentalist. Franklin explains how the Overview Effect impacted him, and how he came back from space with a tremendous awareness of our environmental problem. Charles brings up the differences between the Gaia Hypothesis and the Medea Hypothesis, which says the Earth may be out to get us and will be fine without us.

Somehow, the conversation leads to “The Inner Light” – one of the most beloved episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation, which had tremendous but differing impacts on Franklin and Charles. In the episode, a civilization ignores climate change to the point where it is too late for them to do anything except memorialize their lives and their fate. Miranda talks about the unifying impact of space exploration, and the necessary realization we must reach if we are to survive that we are one species all in this together.

Finally, we turn to VASIMIR. Chuck wants to know how it will change our lives, and Franklin likens it to the trucking business that sprung up after WWII because of the availability of diesel engines. As of right now, he explains that we don’t have an equivalent for space: “We still fly to space in cannonballs.” What we want, he says, is powered flight over longer periods of time, which VASIMIR makes possible, changing the entire economics of space and enabling humans and the private sector to engage in sustained activity in space.

Franklin explains how VASIMIR may someday reduce the time from the Moon to Mars from 8 months to 2 months or less and catalyze the next period of humanity’s expansion into our solar system. In fact, it turns out that the engine Andy Weir used in his book The Martian was based on VASIMIR!

To find out more about Ad Astra, visit their website, www.adastrarocket.com, or follow them on social media at @adastrarocket on YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, and @asastrarocketcompany on Facebook and LinkedIn.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Apollo 17’s Blue Marble photo of the Earth – NASA, Public Domain

– Crew of STS-60, first launch with US and Russian spacefarers – NASA, Public Domain

– Aurora from the ISS – NASA, Public Domain

#TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast  #FranklinChangDiaz #MirandaChang #NASA #VASOMIR #AdAstra #ionpropulsion #rockets #SpaceShuttle #HydrogenPoweredVehicles #FuelCell #ElectricBuses #OverviewEffect #StarTrekTheNextGeneration #TheInnerLight #STS60 #Cosmonauts #Astronauts #climatechange

When humanity heads out for the stars, what will be powering our spacecraft? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome father and daughter team Franklin Chang-Diaz, NASA astronaut and founder of the Ad Astra Rocket Company™, and Miranda Chang, Ad Astra’s Global Communications Director for Part 1 of this two-part episode. (We’ll be posting Part 2 next Saturday!)

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing. Lucy, the robotic NASA mission to the asteroid belt, just passed by its first asteroid Dinkinesh (which has been given the Ethiopian (Amharic) name for the human-ancestor fossil known as Lucy and means “You are marvelous”!). As it did so, it discovered Dinkinesh is actually a double asteroid, in that it has its own orbiting moon, Selam, but that’s not all: Selam is a contact binary, meaning it’s actually two distinct bodies touching each other but not connected.

Next, we turn from discovering asteroids to visiting them, and that’s where Franklin and Miranda come in. Franklin spent 25 years at NASA. He was one of the ninth group of astronauts, the class of 1980, and flew 7 missions in space, the most spaceflights anyone has taken to date. An astronautic jack-of-all-trades engineer, physicist and more who describes himself as a “glorified plumber/electrician”), Franklin flew on each of the Space Shuttles except the Challenger, visited the Soviet space station Mir, took 3 spacewalks and even helped build the International Space Station.

Miranda tells us about Ad Astra’s flagship program, the VX-200 VASIMIR engine (Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket), a new type of high-power, electric in-space propulsion. They’re vastly more powerful (compare a hair dryer to a diesel engine) and more efficient than existing ion propulsion systems.

We jump right into audience questions with one from Mohammed, who asks, “Engineering is problem solving. What happens when you can’t solve the problem?” According to Franklin, “In space, you work the problem until you find a solution and you never stop...eventually, you have to find something.” Miranda adds, “The whole idea of engineers is that there is never “no solution”...The are always working to find a solution...every time I think we’re don, there is no solution for that, they have like three...” Franklin also takes on the NASA mantra, “Failure is not an option.” In his experiences, “Failure is how you learn.... giving up is not an option.”

You’ll also hear about Miranda’s role and how creative storytelling is a critical aspect of helping people understand the complex technical realities of space exploration and the advanced propulsion systems and orbital mechanics Ad Astra deals with.

Miranda explains how Franklin got into the science of propulsion, and how he had started working on the VASOMIR engine even before he joined NASA. He was an engineer who spent a lot of time in the physics laboratory, and he came from Costa Rica specifically to become an astronaut during the burgeoning interest in space exploration during the period of the Apollo program.

That’s it for Part 1. Please tune in next Saturday for the conclusion.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images and sounds Used in this Episode:

– NASA’s 1980 astronaut group, including Franklin – NASA, public domain

– Lucy spacecraft – NASA, public domain

– Lucy/Dink’inesh fossil – 120 on Wikimedia commons, CC BY 2.5

– Dinkinesh and its moon Selam – NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOAO, public domain

– Dinkinesh and Selam from the side – NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL, public domain

– Franklin on a spacewalk (EVA) – NASA, public domain

– Canadarm 2 on the ISS – NASA, public domain

– Ad Astra’s VX-200 VASIMR test engine – Ad Astra Rocket Company™, from online media gallery

– NEXT, a typical electric ion engine – NASA, public domain

– STS-111, Franklin’s last shuttle launch – NASA, public domain

– Swoosh.wav – Berglindsi on Freesound, CC BY 3.0

#TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast  #FranklinChangDiaz #MirandaChang #asteroid #Lucy #Dinkinesh #NASA #VASOMIR #AdAstra #ionpropulsion #rockets #ISS #InternationalSpaceStation #SpaceShuttle #Challenger

How do we find black holes? And how can we tell whether it’s a small black hole “eating” really fast or a large black hole that’s eating very slowly? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrophysicist Dr. Vivienne Baldassare, a professor of astronomy and physics at Washington State University.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the recently published composite photo of the X-ray Binary System in nearby starburst galaxy NGC_4214. Vivienne explains how X-ray Binaries, which are relatively rare, are created by a stellar mass black hole or a neutron star being fed by a star.

Chuck and Vivienne discuss the differences between using the new James Webb Space Telescope and “old tech” like the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and how she uses Chandra to find black holes. Professor Baldassare explains how she uses x-ray observations, optical spectroscopy, and variability data to find intermediate-mass black holes, which she is one of the first astronomers to find. You’ll hear about the differences between stellar mass black holes, supermassive black holes, and the intermediate-mass back holes that fit somewhere between.

Then it’s time for our first student question, from Lorenzo, who asks, “Are stars only found in galaxies, and if not, where else?” Vivienne explains that most stars are found in galaxies, but they can also be found in globular clusters. There are also hyper-velocity stars, which can be found in the halo of our galaxy on their way to escape our galaxy entirely.

A discussion of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which spends about 80% of its time outside the Van Allen belts, turns into a discussion about all the manmade objects orbiting the Earth, including Chandra, Hubble, satellites... and lots of space junk, too. We’ve currently got about 8,000 satellites orbiting Earth – a surprising amount of which are SpaceX Starlink satellites, with more “satellite constellations” planned by SpaceX and others. You’ll find out about the risk of chain-reaction debris collisions due to solar storms and other disruptive events, Kessler Syndrome, the environmental consequences of mostly-aluminum satellites burning up in our atmosphere, and the first fine every levied for space junk, against Dish Network.

For our next student question, Adrian wants to know how tiny black holes can swallow super giant stars? Vivienne explains how tidal disruption, when the gravity on one side of an object is greater than on the other side, can pull a star apart in months or even weeks!

Finally, Vivienne talks about being an ultra-marathon runner and a trail runner, hiking with her dog, and the importance of being able to go out to wild spaces in nature. Chuck gets here to share a favorite hiking memory – a 7-day, long distance solo hike around Mt. Blanc after presenting her work at a conference in France.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Baldassare, you can follow her on Twitter @vbaldassare, Instagram @vbaldassare, or her website which includes her email for you to reach out to her and ask her more questions.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– NGC_4214 (X-ray binary circled) –NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration, Public Doman

– Artist’s impression of an X-ray Binary – Dana Berry/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Public domain

– Launch of Hubble on shuttle flight STS-31 – NASA, Public Domain

– Illustration of the Chandra X-ray Observatory – NASA/CXC/NGST, Public Domain

– Our Milky Way’s central black hole – EHT Collaboration, CC BY 4.0

– Globular cluster NGC 1466 – ESA/NASA (Hubble), Public Domain

– Orbit of the Chandra X-ray Observatory – NASA, Public Domain

– Starlink trails on a CTIO telescope image – NSF’s National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory/CTIO/AURA/DELVE, CC BY 4.0

– Diagram of tides in Earth’s oceans – Orion 8 on Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

#TheLIUniverse #CharlesLiu #AllenLiu #SciencePodcast #AstronomyPodcast  #blackhole #globularclusters #hypervelocitystars #XrayBinary #starburstgalaxy #NGC4214 #stellarmassblackhole #neutronstar #MilkyWayGalaxy #HubbleSpaceTelescope #ChandraXrayObservatory #supermassiveblackholes #intermediatemassbackholes #VanAllenbelts #SpaceX #Starlink #satelliteconstellations #spacejunk #satellites #KesslerSyndrome #tidaldisruption 

In this episode of The LIUniverse, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe, an astronomer and professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, who studies galactic evolution, including galactic collisions and the growth of black holes, to explore final frontiers, both real and fictional.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the first data drop from COSMOS-Web, a database of the deepest, coolest, largest field of deep space ever imaged by JWST, and the largest scientific project yet to be conducted by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe was co-leader of the effort and an integral part of the COSMOS team, which started with 50 people and has grown since then, and which started working on this project long before the JWST launched. Jeyhan also talks about the Redshift Wrangler project, a citizen science project that’s part of the COSMOS-Web and that anyone can contribute to.

We jump into our first student question, from Jonathan, who asks, “Why is there a black hole in the center of our galaxy, and how many galaxies are there in the universe?” Dr. Kartaltepe explains that we think there’s a supermassive black hole in the center of every galaxy, but where they come from is still a mystery. We understand where “regular” black holes come from, but these are still “head scratchers.” And as to how many galaxies there are, the current estimate is in the trillions, and that doesn’t even count the ones that are too far away even to see.

Next, Chuck takes the opportunity to ask Jeyhan about whether or not there really is a galactic barrier like the one shown in Star Trek V – The Final Frontier. And while we don’t actually know where our galaxy ends, Dr. Kartaltepe explains that there is no hard barrier around it. Jeyhan shares how as a child she watched Star Trek: The Original Series with her father, and has watched all of the subsequent series since, and that it helped shape her love of science and her social experience. And get this – Chuck shares that his wife is an even bigger Star Trek geek than he is, and his love of Trek helped him win her over!

Jeyhan, like Chuck, is on Team Star Trek vs. Team Star Wars, and the pair discuss what they like and don’t like about each, ending up in a three-way discussion with Allen about the morality of different races in Star Trek, and the similarities and differences between the Borg Collective and our concerns about Artificial Intelligence. Oh, and which Captain of the Enterprise does Jeyhan think is the best? You’ll have to watch/listen to the episode to find out.

Then it’s time for another student question, from Cynthia: “In a way, the brain has a bunch of  similarities to the universe. Is there a connection between the two, logically or illogically?” According to Jeyhan, one of the biggest similarities is how little we know about each. Philosophical pondering about understanding complexity ensues.

Chuck has his own question for Jeyhan: How often do galaxies interact with each other? She says it’s fairly common: our Milky Way galaxy is already interacting with the small galaxies next to us, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, and has interacted with other small galaxies in the past. And, as we all know, there’s a collision with Andromeda galaxy heading our way in billions of years, and Dr. Kartaltepe describes what might happen when it does.

Finally, we turn to the impending Great North American Eclipse, a total solar eclipse that will be passing directly over Rochester on April 8, 2024.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Kartaltepe’s work, you can follower her on Twitter/X at @jeyhan, or follow COSMOS-Web at @cosmosastro. You can also find out more on the web at https://cosmos.astro.caltech.edu/.

You can find out more about the Redshift Wrangler citizen science project here on Zooniverse.org: https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/jeyhansk/redshift-wrangler.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– The first image data from COSMOS-Web– Kartaltepe/Casey/Franco/Larson, RIT/UT Austin/CANDIDE

– Spectrum of galaxy ARP 193 – Charles Liu

– Simulation of a dark matter halo around a galaxy – Cosmo0 on Wikipedia, Public DOmain

– An EEG recording of brain activity – Laurens R. Krol, Public Domain

– The Magellanic Clouds – ESO, CC BY 4.0

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a science educator and work at a planetarium or science museum? Even better, to run one?

To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Elliot Severn, the Planetarium Director at Sacred Heart University’s Discovery Science Center and Planetarium, and Jenny Powers, the Director of the Springfield Science Museum.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing that has just come down to Earth: the samples of the asteroid Bennu that were collected by the OSIRIS-REx mission! As Charles explains, these samples could give us clues about the evolution of the earliest parts of our solar system. Elliot shows us a cosmic sample of his own: his wedding ring, made from the Gibeon meteorite and actually transported back to space temporarily on Blue Origin NS22. Elliot, who is a space photographer who has been to over 20 space mission launches, was actually at the launch of OSIRIS-REx on September 8, 2016!

And then it’s time to put our guest science educators to work with our student question, from Rachelle: “Why do zodiac signs have the same names as stars?” It’s easy to imagine yourself sitting in the dark in a planetarium, looking up at the stars on the ceiling as Planetarium Director Elliot talks about the constellations in the path of the Ecliptic, and all 13 constellations in the Zodiac. (Yes, there are 13 – but we’ll let Elliot explain why.) He also explains that constellations tend to have Latin names but some of the brightest stars have Arabic names.

Charles and Jenny talk about how we are all connected under the night sky. She explains how her museum is making astronomy more accessible to people by bringing different cultural perspectives into their exhibits. Jenny also describes how they are developing techniques to help people with low or no sight, who can’t simply go outside and look up, appreciate the stars through tactile exhibits and the use of sound.

Elliot, who is also an Astronomy Professor at SHU, describes getting his first telescope at 9 years old and learning how to use it with the help of the members of the Booth Park Astronomy Club in Stratford, Ct. He also talks about Sidewalk Astronomy, where you bring telescopes to public places to let people discover the wonders of the stars free of charge. Elliot shares about his friendship with amateur astronomer John Dobson, the inventor of the Dobsonian telescope who is credited with vastly increasing the numbers of amateur astronomers and popularizing Sidewalk Astronomy.

Jenny talks about her journey from education department and family engagement coordinator to museum director, and how her experiences with her astronomy mentor Richard Sanderson led her to fall in love with planetariums, their technology, and their histories. Jenny and Elliot get a little geeky talking about their various projectors and domes, from original, historically important equipment to modern, digital systems and virtual reality.

Of course, this being The LIUniverse, we end up in a discussion about Star Trek and Star Wars, with Charles encouraging Elliot and Jenny to explain which they prefer and why. (Tune in to hear Charles’ impression of Darth Vader.) Elliot champions Star Trek, and also runs us through why this is a golden age for Trek fans, with a plethora of new series to enjoy. Jenny, on the other hand, is on Team Star Wars, and uses the opportunity to point out that the “science” in Star Trek is often... not.

To find out more about Jenny’s work, visit springieldmuseums.org or catch up with the Museum on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

For Elliot, visit SHUdiscovery.org, and check them out on social media, especially Facebook.

And of course, you can find either of them in real life by visiting their institutions.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– SHU Discovery Science Center and Planetarium – Elliot Severn, used with permission

– Springfield Science Museum – Daderot via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

– The OSIRIS-REx sample being recovered – NASA/Keegan Barber, Public Domain

– Illustration of the Ecliptic in Aquarius – Johann Elert Bode, Public Domain

– Galileo Galilei – Justus Sustermans

– Passage tomb in Knowth, Ireland, home to 5000-year-old Moon drawings – Jemartin03, CC BY 2.0

How did our solar system get here? How did the Earth form? How commonly does that happen elsewhere, and how often do the conditions necessary for life come about?

To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Tom Rice, Astronomer-Educator and AAS staffer, who studies star and planet formations, how solar systems come together out of the “stuff that’s out there floating in our galaxy like gas and dust.”

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the discovery of “baby” brown dwarf TWA 27B that we are watching grow thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. Tom explains that a brown dwarf is not massive enough to ignite the hydrogen in their cores and turn into a star, but is 13 times more massive than gas giant planets like Jupiter. Allen asks Tom about temporal scales and “baby objects” – Tom defines objects as “young” that are still accreting mass, and tend to be in the range of 1-10 million years old. And as for calling brown dwarfs failed stars, well, you’ll just have to watch or listen for Tom’s opinion about that very controversial subject.

Then it’s time for a student question, from Alianna, who asks, “Can a star turn into a planet?” To answer, Tom uses a different distinction between stars, brown dwarfs, and planets: how they form. He explains the development from a region of gas and dust that gets dense and then collapses under its own weight, into a circumstellar disc accreting matter with an object at its center, growing either into a star, or, if it’s too low a mass to ignite, a brown dwarf. A planet forms in a different process, not in the center of the circumstellar disc (aka, the protoplanetary disc) but out of the “stuff” in the disc, at the same time the star is forming. So, Tom says, the answer to the question is “probably no.” Tom and Chuck then discusss a couple of hypothetical situations that could possibly reduce a star to the mass of the planet. They also compare the atmosphere composition of planets and stars. In the case of Jupiter, the composition is very similar to the sun, but the temperature is much cooler, so there are some molecules that form in its atmosphere that would remain in their atomic states in the Sun.

Then we enter the goldilocks zone to discuss what it takes to create a planet that can sustain life, like on Earth. Tom runs down the “must haves” for life, and then turns to the search for earthlike exoplanets using the Kepler and TESS space telescopes. You’ll learn about the transit method of exoplanet detection and what we can learn from it, including size and orbital frequency (which helps determine distance from the sun and therefore habitable temperatures).

Next we hear about Tom’s work on the staff of the American Astronomical Society. His focus: figuring out how channel the energy of society members to improve astronomy education at all levels. If you have a suggestion for Tom, you can find him on Twitter (X) @tomr_stargazer or email him at [email protected].

This being The LIUniverse, Chuck Tom and Allen end up the episode talking about video games, from Super Planet Crasher to Space Engine 2 and Universe Sandbox to the Zelda game, Tears of the Kingdom which has a ton of physics stuff in it– yes, you read that right!

By the way, if Tom looks familiar to you, that might be because he was in our video Chuck recorded at the AAS meeting in Pasadena last year where he showed us his fluency with American Sign Language. Tom is a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults)  and ASL and his signing identity is an important part of his heritage. He lives in Washington, DC, near Gallaudet University, the nation’s only entirely signing university, where Tom works with the Astronomy Club. He’s also working with The National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology on activities relating to the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024 that will pass directly overhead.

If you want to see Tom sign a few astronomic terms including the one for “the planet we live on...the most important place we can know,” watch our video at https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ce4kc96gOT5/.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– TWA 27B (left) and its larger companion (right) – European Southern Observatory, CC BY 4.0

– Circumstellar Disc (artist’s concept) – ESO/L. Calçada, CC BY 4.0

– Illustration of the origin of a Type Ia supernova – NASA, Public Domain

– The Kepler and TESS space telescopes – NASA, Public Domain

– Transit detection of exoplanet WASP-96 b – NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and the Webb ERO Production Team, CC BY 4.0

– Gallaudet University’s Chapel Hall – Carol M. Highsmith, Public Domain

– The National Technical Institute for the Deaf, at RIT – Photog, CC BY 3.0

– Path of the April 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse – NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - Michala Garrison, Ernie Wright, Ian Jones, Laurence Schuler, Public Domain.

Why does Wakanda have no suburbs, and should we destroy them if it did? Is it ethical to become a cyborg, like in the Justice League? Can venom – the toxins or the Marvel character – save your life? In this 2021 New York Comic Con edition of “The LIUniverse,” Astronomer Dr. Charles Liu hosts venom researcher Dr. Mandë Holford and environmental expert Kendra Pierre-Louis for our panel “The Science of Science Fiction.”

Speaking to a packed room (in a convention ‘plagued’ by empty panels and COVID-19 attendance limits) the panelists share their insights into the science within the Marvel and DC comics and movies as well as the rest of geekdom. In our three segments on nature, technology, and the multiverse, you’ll hear about superhumans and mutants from Spider-Man to the X-Men to Captain Planet. You’ll also learn some science, like how a version of string theory predicts a parallel universe where gravity would give us all superpowers.

One of our favorite parts of our panels is taking questions from the audience. This time, fans like you asked some great ones. How will gene editing change the world? Can we tell if an AI, such as the Vision, is really self aware? Does scientific advancement need military rivalries as in “For All Mankind,” a show that flips the space race on its head? What will be the biggest technological advancement of the next 100 years: perhaps miniature organs, or maybe social innovations, or something else entirely? Plus, find out what on Earth “life expectancy escape velocity” is, and what it could mean for the future of humanity.

You can expect to hear about some of your favorite comic superheroes on screen and off, like Black Panther, The Avengers, Wandavision, The Suicide Squad, Braniac, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, Loki, The Fantastic Four, Lex Luthor, Ant-Man, and – lest we forget – The Incredible Hulk.  Relive the experience (if you were lucky enough to be there) or find out what you missed!  Geek out with us!

Chapters:

0:00 Nature and Our Relationship to It

16:34 Technology, Humans, and Superheroes

34:26 The Multiverse: Reality and Fiction

All characters and comic properties are the copyright of their respective owners.

How realistic is the human augmentation depicted in comic, games and movies? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu welcomes the CEO/founder of Neurobionics Dr. MJ Antonini, experimental psychologist Liam McMahon, and our own social media maven and comic/gaming uber-geek Sarah Cotten to the stage for our first-ever appearance at the Boston Fan Expo for a discussion about the science of science fiction, and most particularly, BRAINS! (NOTE: This panel took place during the 2023 writers strike, so our panelists purposefully avoided naming characters our properties out of respect for the striking creators.) 

The panel starts off with a discussion of the feasibility of the kind of human augmentation featured in the dystopian near-future game series Deus Ex. Dr. Antonini, whose company is all about human augmentation and wearable robotics, says that it’s not as far away from reality as you might think. Dr. McMahon talks about using magnetism to perceive what’s going on inside the human mind. Meanwhile, Sarah comes up with a reality TV show concept where people can see through the prosthetic eye of the show’s protagonist.

When Liam brings up the concept of memory augmentation, sharing and retrieval, Charles immediately reminds us all of Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” perhaps better known as the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Total Recall.”

You’ll hear about exoskeletons that can help paralyzed people walk and even kick a soccer ball, and research by David Sinclair at Harvard into slowing down the aging process or even reversing the aging of the human brain. Of course, as Sarah points out, living forever is different than being young forever, unless of course you’re an ageless vampire with a bulging bank account. The panel discusses the impact of immortality on resources, offspring, and the human psyche, which gives Chuck the opportunity to reference “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov.

Of course, there’s no avoiding the subject of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet, and the morality and ethics of both, which naturally leads into a discussion of dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction and games like “Fallout” and the seminal and influential 1984 anime fantasy film “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

The panel ends with a discussion of Alzheimer’s disease, brain augmentation and uploading, what makes personality, and the metaphysical thought experiment known as the Ship of Theseus.

Normally at conventions like this, we end with a vigorous Q&A session, and this event was no exception. But this time if you’d like to hear the Q&A and the rest of the panel content that didn’t make it into this video, you’ll have to check it out on Patreon.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please also support us on Patreon. 

How do planets form out of dust particles? And what does that have to do with fluid dynamics? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrophysicist Dr. Holly Capelo from the University of Bern in Switzerland.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, which takes us to the Observatory of Paris, where a group of scientists are delving into the formation of planetesimals. What are they, where do they come from, and when do they form? Holly dives right in to explain what we know about them, and what forces might prevent planetesimals from growing into planets. Along the way, she blows Chuck’s mind about planet formation and accretion disks.

Next, Dr. Capelo uses Alice in Wonderland to help describe her extensive experiments flying on Novespace’s Air Zero-G (the European equivalent of NASA’s “Vomit Comet”) flying in parabolas in order to better understand fluid dynamics, aerodynamic drag and the impact of freefall, microgravity and hypergravity on dust particles.

For our first question this episode, Allen asks Holly about what makes up interplanetary debris, now and in the past. You’ll learn all about ice lines, the impact of vacuum on water vapor and dust particles, minimum mass solar nebulas, density distributions and how much debris there actually is floating around our solar system. 

You’ll also hear a little bit about Holly’s other experiences, as a dancer, and how grad school made it harder to stay in shape.

Our next question revolves around the possible atmospheres of the Moon, comets and planetesimals. Holly explains how we have evidence of transitory events, like outgassing. She also tells us about an upcoming “comet interceptor” mission to study comets that will place a satellite at a Lagrange point to wait for a comet to enter our solar system and then fly to meet it. 

If you’d like to know more about Holly and her experiments, you can follow her on Twitter @hollycapelo.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

Accretion disks imaged by ALMA – European Southern Observatory, CC BY 4.0
Phase diagram of water – Hokanomono & Cmglee on Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Novespace’s Air Zero-G aircraft – Marc Lacoste, CC BY-SA 4.0
Illustration of Rosetta at comet 67P – Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, CC-BY 3.0

How do you go about building a planet? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome computational astrophysicist Dr. Aleksandra Kuznetsova, a NHFP Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow at The American Museum of Natural History.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the presence of both a mini-Neptune and an exo-Venus in the exoplanetary system GJ3929, each with very short orbits around their star. Aleksandra discusses planetary migration and how it’s possible to have as tightly packed solar systems as GJ3929.

For our first student question, Kevin asks, “How can you create an artificial magnetic field for a planet like Mars?” Aleksandra explains the importance of Earth’s geodynamo in creating our magnetic field, and how it results from our rotating core of molten conductive metal material. This being The LIUniverse, of course a discussion of the movie “The Core” ensues, along with deeper dives into the kinetic energy of Earth’s rotation what it might take to re-spin a planetary core.

And then we’re off and running with the subject that’s near and dear to Aleksandra, the simulation of planetary formation. You’ll hear about our attempts to observe the “embedded phase” of planetary system development and the challenges of observation prior to the JWST with terrestrial radio telescopes like ALMA and the ngVLA. It turns out that protoplanetary disks in the embedded phase are quite “messy!”

Our second question comes from one of our Patrons on Patreon, Cameron, who asks, “Carl Sagan said, “We are a way for the universe to know itself,” but is there a stigma that makes this knowledge unattractive to people? How do we inspire more people to learn more?”

Aleksandra brings up the idea of using language or art to inspire awe and wonder in people. For instance, the art of Wassily Kandinsky. It turns out, not only is Composition 8 by the artist Chuck’s favorite piece of non-representational art, but Aleksandra shares what a natural science nerd Kandinsky was and how intrigued he was by early microscopy images, as evidenced by his painting Capricious Forms.

Before the episode wraps, Aleksandra, Chuck, and Allen bond about how much they loved the movie, Everything, Everywhere, All At Once.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Kuznetsova and her research, visit her website at https://www.astrokuznetsova.com/ or follow her on X (Twitter) @1auaway.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Artist’s impression of a protoplanetary disk – ESO/L. Calçada, CC BY 4.0

– Illustration of Earth’s magnetic field – NASA, public domain

– Diagram of Earth’s geodynamo – Andrew Z. Colvin, CC BY-SA 4.0

– Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station in South Korea –핑크로즈, CC BY 2.0

– Radio telescopes in the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) – ESO/C. Pontoni, CC BY 4.0

– Radio telescopes in the ngVLA –  CGP Grey, CC BY 2.0

– Composition 8 by Wassily Kandinsky – Wassily Kandinsky, 1923, Public Domain

– Capricious Forms by Wassily Kandinsky – Wassily Kandinsky, 1937, Public Domain

Brown dwarfs are often called failed stars, but today’s guest on the LIUniverse, astrophysicist Dr. Johanna Vos, prefers to think of them as overachieving planets. Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu discuss with Johanna why brown dwarfs are so cool (pun intended!), and how their formation is something of a cosmic-scale anticlimax.

Beginning with today’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a pair of brown dwarfs orbiting each other more than a hundred times farther than the Earth is from the Sun, we’ll go into how astronomers study these objects from here on Earth and from our observatories in space such as the brand new James Webb Space Telescope. Along the way, we’ll learn how the astronomical community decides which of the sky’s numerous exciting objects get seen with these cutting-edge facilities.

In fact, that leads right into our first student question for this episode, in which Nevan asks what object our guest thinks the JWST should look at first. While Johanna answers with one of her favorite objects, in typical Chuck fashion we end up on the ice planet Hoth*. We also have a question from Aryeh who asks for some advice for current students interested in astronomy. (As always, if you want your questions answered, support the LIUniverse on Patreon!)

Next, Johanna explores some of the differences between her own experience with the education system in Ireland and Scotland and what she sees from the students she mentors in New York. We also get to hear about Johanna’s experience dancing ballet. She shares which ballets are her favorites to view and to perform, and what dance – and art more generally – has in common with Astronomy.

To keep up with our guest’s exciting astronomical research, you can follow @Johannamvos on Twitter, and don’t forget to subscribe to us here on YouTube so you can catch every episode as soon as it comes out!

*For those of you who don’t know, Hoth first appears in the Empire Strikes Back, aka Star Wars Episode V.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

 - A stellar nursery in the Orion Nebula – Credit: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA/ESA

 - Planet-forming disk around the star HL Tauri – Credit: ALMA, CC-BY 4.0

- Wise 0855 moving through the sky – Credit: WISE/Spitzer, NASA/JPL-Caltech/Penn State University

- The New Technology Telescope in Chile  – Credit: ESO/B. Tafreshi (twanight.org), CC-BY 4.0

Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu continue our exploration into the poetry of the stars with Part 2 of our episode featuring poet/astronomer/cosmologist Dr. Yun Wang and poet/author Midge Goldberg, editor of “Outer Space: 100 Poems.”

We pick up right where we left off in Part 1, with a discussion of standard candles and how Edwin Hubble used Cepheid Variable Stars to determine the distance to Andromeda – incorrectly, as Chuck explains.

We then find out that Yun is working on not one, but two upcoming space telescopes: The Euclid Space Telescope launching in July 2023 and the Roman Space Telescope, a Hubble-class space telescope named after Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first Chief of Astronomy, launching in 2027.

As with Part 1, The LIUniverse couldn’t possibly have two poets as guests on the show without a little poetry reading and analysis. Allen kicks it off by reading a Walt Whitman poem, “A Noiseless, Patient Spider.” Midge follows up with a reading excerpted from “My God, It’s Full of Stars” by Tracy K. Smith, one of the first poems she chose to put into “Outer Space: 100 Poems.” Yun reads both the original Chinese version and then the translation of a poem by Su Dongpo, the Song Dynasty poet who is the third of the greatest poets in Chinese history, followed by an English translation. (The group discussed the other two, Du Fu and Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty era in China, in Part 1 – just another reason to go and listen if you haven’t already, poetry fans!)

Chuck reads from a poem by Salvatore Quasimodo, the Nobel prize-winning Italian poet, after which he reminds us all about Commander Data’s unfortunate attempt at poetry about his cat Spot on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Allen begrudgingly reads the first couplet, and Midge describes what happens when AI writes a sonnet.

Finally, Charles ends the episode with a reading and discussion of “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” from Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” which Yun explains she doesn’t hate anymore, but still doesn’t love.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Yun Wang and her many scientific and poetic publications, see her bio page at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech): https://web.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/wang/.

To learn more about Midge Goldberg, visit her website: https://www.midgegoldberg.com/ or follow her on Twitter at @MidgeGoldberg.

“Outer Space: 100 Poems” is published by Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/outer-space-100-poems/7D8D674BE0C7215CCC9FD0284044B819

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Edwin Hubble in 1931 – John Hagemeyer, Public Domain

– Euclid Space Telescope (rendering) – European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0

– Roman Space Telescope (rendering) – NASA (WFIRST Project and Dominic Benford), Public Domain

– Painting of Su Dongpo (posthumous) – Zhao Mengfu, 1301, Public Domain

What is the universe made of? Will we ever have a complete list of all the particles that make up existence? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Dr. Lesya Horyn, PhD, a Fermilab researcher working at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Switzerland.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, which takes us to Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, NY, where scientists have figured out how to make matter from energy. They smashed 2 photons together to produce a matter/anti-matter particle pair. It happens naturally in the universe, and we convert matter into energy all the time, but we’ve never before turned energy into matter using photons, which have no mass.

Next up, a quantum mechanics question from Lindsey in Massachusetts: “Do you believe that there is an elementary particle responsible for gravity?” Dr. Horyn explains how the standard model (the “periodic table” of subatomic particles) “makes a nice picture” but is “missing stuff” like dark matter and gravity, neither of which are in the standard model. One of these missing pieces is the graviton, a theorized elementary particle that would be responsible for gravitational force in the same way that the photon is responsible for the electromagnetic force, which Dr. Horyn and Charles both believe exists but has not yet been discovered. (Honorable mention: Our geek-in-chief Chuck mentions the Marvel Comics supervillain Graviton, who has the comic book superpower of gravity.)

Dr. Horyn explains her research at CERN, and how the LHC actually is used for experiments. You’ll learn more about the LHC, a 17-mile-circumfrence underground ring used to smash particles into each other at specific speeds, and the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector, which Lesya is using for her research now. You’ll also hear about the much larger A Toroidal LHC Apparatus (ATLAS), which she used previously for her primary research, both of which were used in the discovery of the Higgs boson ten years ago.

As Charles and Lesya take us down the particle physics rabbit hole, we end up talking about the Muon g-2 experiments eventually conducted by Fermilab. Find out why the gyromagnetic moment is important to particle physics – and yes, we go deep into the physics weeds in this episode! (Make sure to catch the story about moving a giant magnet from Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York by boat and truck to Fermilab in Illinois!)

Moving on, the crew tackles a question from Walter T. on Patreon, who asks, “Could the many worlds theory still be deterministic?” Charles explains the many worlds model, but because our existing experiments cannot distinguish between the many different models of quantum mechanics, Lesya defaults to the infamous Richard Feynman quote, “Anybody who claims to understand quantum mechanics is either crazy or lying.”

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Horyn, you can follow her on Twitter at @lesyaah. And be sure to follow @CERN, @ATLASexperiment, and @CMSexperiment to keep up with some of the developments we’ve discussed in this episode.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:
Brookhaven National Laboratory – Credit: Energy.gov, public domain
Particles in the Standard Model – Credit: Cush via Wikimedia, public domain
The CMS detector – Credit: Evenkolder, CC-BY 2.0
The g-2 experiment magnet in transit – Credit: Energy.gov, public domain
MuonG-2 Predicted – Credit: Allen Liu, for the LIUniverse
MuonG-2 Observed – Credit: Allen Liu, for the LIUniverse

We often hear about the music of the spheres, but why not the poetry of the stars? In this episode Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome poet/astronomer/cosmologist Dr. Yun Wang and poet/author Midge Goldberg, editor of “Outer Space: 100 Poems” that includes Yun’s poem, “Space Journal: Serendipity.”

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, a possible candidate relativistic tidal disruption event. Put another way, in a galaxy far, far away, a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is possibly shredding a star, creating a brightening flare of radio emission. Naturally, given our guests, Chuck and company reflect on the idea of a black hole as a metaphor.

Moving on, Dr. Wang discusses her exploration of our universe and her eventual goal of modeling a billion galaxies in 3-D. She and Chuck briefly address whether universal expansion will continue forever, as some posit, and whether dark energy is truly a cosmological constant or not.

Then it’s poetry time! Midge recounts her journey to create “Outer Space: 100 Poems” and how she eventually connected with Yun, who not only contributed her own poem to the book but also translated a poem by Du Fu, who Chuck explains is one of the two greatest poets of the Tang Dynasty in China. The other is Li Bai, composer of “Night Thoughts,” the only poem Dr. Liu can recite by heart in Chinese, which he proceeds to do before also reciting the English translation he wrote.

Midge talks about choosing poems from around the world, drawn from ancient cultures up to modern day poetry about landing on the moon, and describes some of their age-old, shared themes.

For our student question, William asks, “How can poetry be used to communicate astronomy research?” Midge points to an eponymous poem about “Olber’s Paradox” she included in the book which taught her about the paradox. You’ll learn about the first scientifically reasonable answer to the paradox, which Midge points out, was written by none other than Edgar Allen Poe!

Yun explains how she almost unintentionally mingles her science and her poetry in her writing, after which she reads her poem, “Space Journal: Serendipity.” To answer William’s query, she dives into the actual science and astronomy research that is embodied in every word of her poem.

Does Chuck find an opportunity to talk about the holodecks in Star Trek, Schrodinger’s Cat, and other equally geeky subjects? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Come back in two weeks for the rest of Chuck’s interview with Dr. Yun Wang and poet/author Midge Goldberg.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Yun Wang and her many scientific and poetic publications, see her bio page at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech): https://web.ipac.caltech.edu/staff/wang/.

To learn more about Midge Goldberg, visit her website: https://www.midgegoldberg.com/ or follow her on Twitter at @MidgeGoldberg.

“Outer Space: 100 Poems” is published by Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/outer-space-100-poems/7D8D674BE0C7215CCC9FD0284044B819

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

How does the science of today lead us into the future we’ve imagined? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome scientist, futurist and podcaster Andrew Maynard, PhD from Arizona State University. Dr. Maynard’s career has taken him from physicist to futurist, with sojourns in risk analysis, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and of course, science communication. 

To begin, we travel back to Andrew’s early days studying aerosol physics, using electron microscopy to analyze minute airborne particles… like asbestos fibers. And, given the pandemic we’ve all been living through, it’s not surprising that Chuck, Allen and Andrew end up discussing the airborne particle on everyone’s mind these days: the COVID-19 virus. You’ll find out exactly how big nanoparticles are: 10,000 times thinner than a human hair!

Andrew is also a futurist, and we slide right into a discussion of nanobots, and why man-made mechanical nanobots are unlikely – the physics just don’t work at this scale – but biological molecules that behave like microscopic machines are at work right now inside each and every one of us. 

Our first question comes from Stacey Severn, who is the Community Manager for The LIUniverse and a serious science fiction fan. She asks, “How plausible is it for the nanites described in “Star Trek: They Next Generation” to become real? Andrew relates the story of scientist Eric Drexler, who wrote a book called “Engines of Nature” that speculated on the possibility of creating nanites. Unfortunately, physics at the nano scale works very differently than at larger sizes.

Moving on, Chuck asks about She-Hulk, who became a green superpowered being through a blood transfusion from the Incredible Hulk. Could a transfusion cause a systemic change to a living being? Surprisingly, in principal, it’s possible. We look at gene editing using CRISPR and creating gene drives, where you can change the genetic makeup of a whole species like malaria-bearing mosquitoes. 

What about finding extra-terrestrial life? Andrew puts on his risk-analysis hat to look at the possibility, and the potential risks to humanity. Andrew explains why he’s not really worried about alien diseases, but much more concerned about the hypothesis of contacting an advanced species – and not for the reasons you might expect. (Hint: we’re the danger, not the advanced, evolved aliens!)

Our next question comes from a fan named Benjy and is also related to Star Trek: Will we ever have transporter technology that can move living creatures from one place to another. We look at the digitization of information, 3-D printing, DNA replication, and the similarities to and differences from transporter technology. 

Finally, Chuck asks Andrew about science communication and how to become successful on YouTube as an academic. Despite the fact that Andrew describes himself as having “no talent and no time” he started his own YouTube channel called Risk Bites, which has racked up 4 million views across all his videos, which isn’t bad for an academic channel. The key: staying focused on empowering other people to do really cool stuff.

If you’d like to know more about Andrew, check out the Mission Interplanetary podcast at ASU he co-hosts here: https://missioninterplanetary.com/.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:
– Biomolecules translating DNA into a protein – Bensaccount at en.wikipedia, CC-BY 3.0
– Animation of CRISPR editing a gene – UC Berkeley, Video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Stephen McNally, Additional footage provided by Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) and Ella Maru Studio, CC-BY 2.5
– Timelapse of a 3D printer – RepRapPro, CC-BY 3.0

How do we study the spinning of stars? What is astroseismology? And what does data science have in common with “the music of the spheres?” To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome astrophysicist Dr. Isabel Colman, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow from the American Museum of Natural History, who studies stellar rotation through a data science perspective.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, C/2022 E3 ZTF, aka the “Green Comet.” After Chuck regales us with the childhood classic, “Comet, it makes your mouth turn green...” Isabel explains why the presence of carbon causes the comet’s green appearance.

Moving on, our first student question comes from Thomas, who asks, “What would happen if our Sun collided with another star?” Isabel explains that the common envelope phase of stellar collisions is one of the least understood aspects of astronomy but explains how angular momentum transfer would come into play.

Chuck asks Isabel about what happens when stars spin and what’s going on with star spots. She explains how we observe stellar rotation by studying color (temperature) variations and what role magnetic activity plays in the process.

You’ll learn how she uses TESS, which was designed to discover exoplanets, for stellar astrophysics, and learn why they say, “You can’t study planets without studying stars first.” You’ll also hear about the relatively recent field of astroseismology, and why you need lots of data and time to discover repeating patterns of oscillations.

Next, we discover that Isabel is an accomplished singer, and that in high school she was both the Choir Captain and the President of the Astronomy Club. Plus, we learn about Isabel’s latest hobby, photographing and developing her own back and white images. She shares one of her recent photos of the Cloisters in upper Manhattan with Allen and Chuck. (Sorry, podcast listeners!) Circling back to astrophysics, Isabel discusses how she uses the process of image subtraction to study variable stars.

Our second question comes from Cameron, one of our Patrons on Patreon, who asks about whether the lack of oxygen in exoplanet atmospheres, which would prohibit the development of fire, would also prevent intelligent life from forming? The myth of Prometheus aside, Isabel points out that there is intelligent life in the oceans of Earth (including non-mammalian life like octopi) where there is no fire, after which she, Chuck, and Allen delve into theorizing about what kind extraterrestrial life could exist.

Finally, Isabel talks about the role of building algorithms and coding in her studies, how much she enjoys it, and why she sees it as a creative process rather than a boring, analytical one. In fact, she says that the more she learns, the more blurred the lines between technical skill and creative skill become.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Isabel Colman and her studies and recent publications, you can visit her website at www.ilc.fyi.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) – Orbital ATK / NASA, Public Domain

– C/2022 E3 ZTF – the “Green Comet” – Alessandro Bianconi/INAF, CC BY-SA 2.0

– A large sunspot from 2014 – NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Public Domain

– An exoplanet light curve from JWST – NASA, Public Domain

– Kepler space telescopes: NASA/Troy Cryder , Public Domain

– CoRoT space telescopes: Blue straggler, CC BY-SA 3.0

– The Carina Nebula imaged by JWST – NASA/ESA/STScI, Public Domain

– Gaia and its map of the galaxy (Artist’s impression) – European Space Agency, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Are you ready to meet The Meteorite Man?

On this atypical episode of The LIUniverse, rather than our usual working scientist, academic or researcher guests, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome famous meteor hunter Geoff Notkin. And he brought show and tell!

“It is a strange truth… in our world of space rocks, that meteorites, more often than not, especially the rare or super desirable ones, are in the most inconvenient places.” (Although you will hear about this one time, in 1998, when the famous meteorite hunter Skip Wilson, who found over 100 meteorites in his career, virtually had one land in his back yard in New Mexico.)

Geoff can turn the journey of a meteorite from the Moon or Mars to Earth into an action-adventure story. And when it comes to the discussion of presolar grains and chondrites, well… 

Find out how Geoff turned his passion into his career, living a life of adventure and discovery, donating many of those otherworldly treasures to academic institutions, libraries and museums. He and longtime meteor hunting partner Steve Arnold were the co-hosts of Meteorite Men, which appeared on The Science Channel.

Geoff also shares his ethical and moral issues around starting and running Aerolite Meteorites, now one of the worldwide commercial leaders in the field of meteoritics. Chuck and Geoff discuss whether it’s even possible for amateurs, academics and business to co-exist in fields from paleontology to archeology, to meteoritics. 

As always, we relish the day’s joyful, cosmically cool thing, and it’s a strange one: preserved cockroaches that ate moon dust are being sold at an auction. How did those roaches ingest that moon dust? You’ll have to watch to find out.*

How can we top that? Perhaps with a story about Geoff himself eating moon dust and living to tell the tale – which he does on this episode of The LIUniverse.

If you’d like to know more about Geoff, check out his YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcGREEGQbQV3x-CnOXcXTg 

We hope you enjoy this episode, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

*Since the recording of this episode, NASA has halted the auction of the cockroaches, exerting their ownership rights over the aforementioned moon dust.

Credits for Images or Clips Used in this Episode:

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft sampling asteroid Bennu video clip –NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona, Public Domain

Planetary accretion (artist’s impression) – ESO/L. Calçada, CC BY 4.0

A piece of the Allende Meteorite – Shiny Things, CC BY 2.0

Electron microscope image of a presolar grain – Kathryn Hynes, CC BY 2.0

Was there ever life on Mars? Where can your passion for astronomy and cosplaying take you? And what the heck is a Light Sail?

To get the answer to these and other questions, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Sarah Al-Ahmed, host of The Planetary Society’s podcast, Planetary Radio.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: a new ice-filled hole on Mars! Thanks to data from the Mars Insight Lander and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, we know now that the disturbance that occurred on Mars on Christmas Eve of 2021 wasn’t a marsquake at all, but a meteor strike on the Red Planet. And the ice didn’t originate on the surface, but was kicked up by the impact.

And now that we’ve arrived at Mars, we might as well dive in. Sarah talks about the value of staged investigations of Mars, and why we shouldn’t send humans to Mars just yet. (Can you say contamination?) The conversation quickly turns to whether humans should colonize Mars, or explore it, at least at first.

For our initial student question, Anthony asks Sarah, “What date would you expect Mars to be habitable?” which we take to mean either, when was it habitable, if at all, and also, when will it be habitable? Sarah talks about the samples and science we’ve done with Curiosity, Perseverance and other missions to Mars, which point to Mars having been habitable 2-3 billion years ago, before some catastrophic change caused it to lose its atmosphere. As to the future? Sarah optimistically predicts we could have humans living in small-scale habitats within a hundred years, but it’s unlikely that we could ever make the whole planet habitable again.

Moving on, Chuck asks Sarah about her career. She talks about getting her degree in astrophysics at UC Berkeley, operating a telescope at Lick Observatory, and working with – and learning from – Alex Filippenko, noted astronomer and one of the leading scientists involved in figuring out the amount of dark energy in the universe. She followed her passion to the Griffith Observatory, where she spent 6 years sharing her love of astronomy with people of all ages from all over the world at the world’s most-looked-through telescope. Thanks to its location in Los Angeles, the Observatory is also one of the most frequently depicted in TV, and Chuck and Sarah swap stories about its appearance in Wonder Woman (the Linda Carter series) and Star Trek Voyager.

Sarah also shares another aspect of her geekdom: she’s a gamer and a cosplayer! She shows off the Razor Kitty Kraken 2 headphones and Carina Nebula JWST-image dress she’s wearing (sorry podcast listeners – they’re really cool!) and talks about how she “recharges her happiness batteries” by going to cons and cosplaying. Convention name dropping and Doctor Who citing ensues – and of course Chuck talks about The LIUniverse’s deep ties to New York Comic Con. Check out our two live Science of Sci-Fi panels from 2021 and 2022.

Next, it’s time for our second student question, from a different Anthony: “How does astronomy impact you as a person or the way you look at life?” Sarah’s answer is so powerful and empowering, we wouldn’t dream of spoiling it here – watch or listen for yourself! (Chuck’s response is pretty cool, too.)

Finally, Sarah talks about her gig at The Planetary Society, where she now hosts their Planetary Radio podcast, and all of the cool projects that are coming to fruition. You’ll learn about their new Member Community Digital App and the new Planetary Academy membership program for kids 9 and younger. Chuck and Sarah discuss the importance of The Planetary Society and its legacy. (For those of you who don’t know, Carl Sagan was one of its co-founders, and their current CEO is Bill Nye the Science Guy.) And you’ll find out about the Society’s Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission, a solar sail cubesat that was launched on the recent Artemis 1 mission and is designed for asteroid detection and planetary defense. Sarah also gives us an update on the Society’s Light Sail 1 and Light Sail 2, the first fully crowdfunded space mission in history.

If you’d like to know more about Sarah and The Planetary Society, visit planetary.org. You can find Planetary Radio wherever you get your podcasts, or on Twitter @planrad, where Sarah will be tweeting.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– New ice-filled crater on Mars – NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona, Public Domain

– Artist’s impression of Mars 4 billion years ago – ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger, CC BY 4.0

– Lick Observatory in Santa Clara County, California – Thomson200, Public Domain

– Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California – Plane777, Public Domain

– Concept art for the Near-Earth Asteroid Scout mission – NASA, Public Domain

– LightSail 2’s view from orbit – The Planetary Society, CC BY-SA 3.0

How can we create accurate models of galaxies, both ours and others? To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Paco Holguin, a graduate researcher at the University of Michigan Dept. of Astronomy who specializes in computational astrophysics and galactic simulations.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: neutron decay. The scientists at Los Alamos National Lab have recently determined that the half-life of a neutron is 877+/- 0.5 seconds, or about 14.5 minutes!

Moving on, Paco tells us how his love for video games and simulations led him to his field of studies, which includes the study of cosmic rays, charged particles and magnetic fields as he models galaxies. And of course, no discussion of Cosmic Rays can possibly pass without a discussion of the Fantastic Four, whose superpowers in the Marvel Comics derived from their exposure to cosmic rays.

For our first student question, Will from the Pingree School Astronomy Club wants to know about other extreme objects other than black holes and neutron stars in our galaxy. Paco starts by explaining how some types of cosmic rays, called ultra-high energy cosmic rays, qualify as extreme objects. Find out about the “Oh My God” particle, which moves so close to the speed of light that if it raced a photon across the galaxy, the photon would only be ahead by a meter after 300,000 years. (To avoid possible confusion, we’re not talking about the so-called “God Particle”, aka the Higgs boson.)

Paco explains how sometimes when he models a galaxy, it’s going along well and all of a sudden, it simply explodes. Because he uses extremely complex equations to simulate galaxies, Paco decided to take a graduate math class to better understand those equations. 

Next up, Jayla from North Andover asks if there is an upper limit to the size of a black hole. As Paco and Charles discuss the possibility, agreeing that while we don’t know whether there is an actual upper limit, or we just haven’t found it yet, we have measured black holes that have billions of times the mass of our Sun.

Finally, Paco discusses what he’s been doing recently at Los Alamos, where for the past two summers he worked on machine learning projects with a diverse set of scientists and researchers. One of the projects he worked on was analyzing data from the Mars Curiosity Rover’s Chemcam using machine learning with mathematicians and computer scientists. Paco also shared with us that now that he’s finishing up his PhD, he’s off to the Applied Physics Lab at Johns Hopkins University to work on projects including exploratory space probe missions, national security issues, and more.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

Curiosity's Chemcam – Credit: NASA, Public Domain

Los Alamos National Labs, aerial view – Credit: Los Alamos National Labs

Can you turn your passion for science into a career that helps keep millions of people safe from severe weather and includes launching your own satellites into space? To find out. Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome Andy Green, the entrepreneur and self-confessed computer nerd who runs MyRadar.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, which has to do with weather... but on another planet! We’re talking about the latest infrared image of Jupiter showing storms, auroras, and atmospheric conditions on the planet’s surface, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope and processed by a citizen scientist, Judy Schmidt, who has been doing this as a hobby for years!

Our guest, Andy Green, turned his lifelong passion for science and computers into the MyRadar app, which helps 13 million active users keep one step ahead of tornadoes, hurricanes and other severe weather that’s happening with increased frequency and severity due to climate change.

He’s the perfect person to answer our student question, which comes from Anthony: “How much impact and change do you actually see from global warming in the near future?” Unfortunately, says Andy, the answer is quite a bit, as he discusses, among other things, the increased incidences of wildfires and flooding we’re seeing on a global basis. And while weather and climate are different, Andy – who’s been staring at raw weather data for the last ten years – says, “It’s hard to escape the reality that storms have been becoming more and more severe, and the impacts from the storms have been more devastating to people.”

Next, Charles and Andy discuss how the US is the world leader in tornadoes, and whether Tornado Alley is shifting and growing over time. Andy explains how MyRadar has been expanding to offer more science education to its users, as well as better warnings for wildfires and non-weather-related events like impending earthquakes, and more. MyRadar is even launching their own satellites to provide even better data, getting them into low earth orbit via commercial space launch companies like Rocket Lab. Andy shares about how his engineers and scientists developed the MyRadar “Project Horis” nanosatellites, which will have solar panels and a suite of sensors onboard, including a hyperspectral imager, a thermal imager, and a visual camera. He even shows us one of his CubeSat prototypes and explains how they stay in orbit, what allows them to change what the satellite is pointing at, and why every newly launched satellite is required to include a deorbiting plan.

And then it’s time to geek out. Andy tells Chuck how he got into computers when he was 9 years old in the 70s with Radio Shack’s TRS-80 and has been a computer nerd ever since. He learned how to code, and fell in love with the feeling of power that gave him and set him on the course he’s still on today. He even has a Model 3, which he shows us during the video. (And if you’re just listening, don’t worry: Chuck gives you a colorful description. Can you say floppy drive?) The conversation flows from the evolution of computers and computer games, to artificial intelligence, to the benefits of augmented reality glasses and virtual reality games.

If you’d like to know more about Andy and MyRadar, go to www.myradar.com, and to hear about Project Horis, visit www.myradar.space.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

– Jupiter in infrared as seen by JWST – NASA / ESA / CSA / Jupiter ERS Team / Ricardo Hueso Alonso / Judy Schmidt, CC BY 2.0

– A launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket – National Reconnaissance Office, Public Domain

– Rocket Lab’s launch site on New Zealand’s Mahia peninsula – Grumpy Eye, CC BY-SA 2.0

– Carving of the Egyptian god Horus 19th Dynasty, photographed by Tangopaso, Public Domain

Are we all mutants? Can we all be superheroes? Is the multiverse all in our heads?

Welcome to Season 2 of The LIUniverse with Dr. Charles Liu. We’re kicking off this season the same way we did last season, with “The Science of Science Fiction” – our latest standing-room-only panel from the most recent New York Comic Con. Chuck’s guests this time around were neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Dr. Heather Berlin and geneticist Dr. Dan Ginsburg. Join us as we delve into the science surrounding three subjects: Super Genetics, Super Neuropsychology, and the Multiverse.

Segment 1: Super Genetics 

Dan explains how in reality, we’re all mutants, with changes in our DNA occurring naturally in our lives. Could Horizontal Gene Transfer account for Jennifer Walters turning into She-Hulk after a transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner, aka, the Hulk! Could a radioactive spider actually turn Peter Parker into a super-hero? After all, about 1500 genes in the human genome actually came from other species. And what about super-powered mutations due to exposure to various forms of radiation? 

Find out why immortality isn’t a cure for psychosis, and why the human brain’s imperfection and constant state of change mean that the longer you live, the less like your earlier self you remain. And what would an immortal remember? According to Dr. Berlin, not nearly as much as consciously as subconsciously, and limited by the size of the hippocampus. 

Heather tells us about her work on the National Academy of Sciences Science and Entertainment Exchange, where real scientists work with content creators from Hollywood to the hinterlands to inject real science into fictional worlds. (They’re even on call at 1-800-NEEDSCI!) Remember when Dr. Strange gets distracted while driving and gets into the car wreck that starts off his whole MCU journey? That was Heather!

Segment 2: Super Neuropsychology

Turning to Moon Knight, we explore the neural and psychoanalytic aspects of dissociative identity disorder (DID). Could one state of consciousness have different physical attributes or skills than another, the way Jake Lockley can speak Spanish and Stephen Grant can speak Arabic but Marc Spector, Moon Knight’s main persona, can’t really speak either? Heather talks about the actual data that proved that one person could be blind in one state of consciousness, and not the other. Dan and Heather discuss external stressors and genetic predispositions to DID and also whether different personas can interact with each other.

After that, Charles crosses from Marvel into DC to discuss Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and how during Morpheus’ absence, people fell into a long-term, dreamless state of sleeping stupor called Encephalitis Lethargica. It turns out, it’s a real thing, and up to a million people or even more may have suffered from encephalitis lethargica for which the Spanish Flu virus may have been the triggering event. Could “long COVID” create similar responses, especially given all the mutations the COVID virus keeps generating at a more rapid rate than human biology can adapt to. And what does the immuno histocompatibility complex have to do with any of this? 

Next, you’ll hear a spoiler-free discussion of the Scarlet Witch explores whether grief or other forms of emotion cause serious psychological issues? Can they cause mutation?

Of course, this wouldn’t be The LIUniverse without Chuck taking questions from our audience. Via email, Talal asks about time perception in brains, and does brain size impact our sense of time, as in when Ant-Man or the Wasp shrink to the size of an insect. Heather explains how brain size has no impact, but how a brain, human or otherwise, is wired does speed up or slow down our perception of the passage of time.

Segment 3: The Multiverse

It’s all the rage right now, especially thanks to “Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and more, but what exactly is the current state of scientific thought around it? Astrophysicist Chuck gives us the 411 on the multiverse – why it could actually exist, with us within it, but why traveling between the universes within the multiverse like America Chavez does is still very much the realm of science fiction. To which Heather reframes the question, looking at the idea that our brain creates our subjective reality, and we can create multiple universes in our heads. (Shoutout to Michelle Yeoh and “Everything Everywhere, All at Once”!)

Our last questions come from Dr. Berlin, who asks Chuck about a version of the Drake equation for multiverses, quantum entanglement, spooky action at a distance, and how they all relate to the ideas about the multiverse; and Dr. Ginsburg, who asks about 5-dimensional constructs called membranes (M theory) and the many worlds hypothesis.

Finally, because there’s one in “the Multiverse of Madness,” we turn to the ever-popular concept of zombies. Dan tells us about infectious zombies, including how a fungus can take over its prey the way cordyceps can infect ants. Unfortunately, Heather tells us, humans are not immune, and brings up the effects of toxoplasmosis and also compares sleepwalkers with zombies.

Best panel ever? Watch and decide for yourself. 

All characters and comic properties are the copyright of their respective owners.

We hope you enjoy the Season 2 premier of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

What can exoplanets teach us about our own solar system? Dr. Charles Liu explores the furthest reaches of our galaxy with the help of Vassar College astrophysicist Jackie Villadsen and co-host Allen Liu. 

As always, our episode starts with  the day’s cosmically cool thing: a weird and fun exoplanet system called K2-290 that’s exhibiting some crazy celestial mechanics. Find out what a K2 designation means, how the Kepler space telescope overcame a mechanical disaster, and why reaction wheels are really important! (Plus, we geek out a little bit about Star Wars and Tatooine!)

Our first student question, from Jean from New York City, “Is life possible on exoplanets?” kicks off a discussion of why we don’t know the answer yet. Jackie sums up the efforts of tens of thousands of scientists all around the globe involved in the search for life on extra-solar planets, including the different signals solar system scientists look for compared to extrasolar astronomers. You’ll hear how many exoplanets we’ve discovered already – get an update from “Future Allen” that you won’t want to miss! 

Jackie shares her experiences using – and climbing all over – the Very Large Array radio telescope, the same ground-based telescope system that Jodie Foster was sitting in the movie Contact. You’ll learn about the birth of radio astronomy, coronagraphs, and why radio bursts from the sun are so intriguing. The trio talks about red dwarf stars and coronal mass ejections, including what they can tell us about our own solar system and why CMEs from our own sun could be responsible for the arid Mars we see now.

We also get to know more about Ruby Payne-Scott, the groundbreaking astronomer who, along with her colleagues, first found and categorized radio bursts from our sun in Australia after WWII. You’ll discover why she had to hide her marriage from the government in order to pursue her career. We also take one of our more interesting pop culture diversions so far, when Jackie tells us about her guilty pleasure: romance novels, including “The Ladies Guide to Celestial Mechanics” by Olivia Waite, set in the 1800s.

Finally, we grapple with a philosophical question from Walter T., one of our Patreon Patrons, that ponders existence and whether true nothingness could be possible. The answer takes us from the edge of the Big Bang to the implications of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity and the ever-increasing space between galaxies. 

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

The Kepler satellite before launch – Credit: NASA, public domain

The Very Large Array – Credit: Wikipedia user Hajor, CC BY-SA 3.0

Total Solar Eclipse – Credit: Stephen Rahn, Public Domain

Ruby Payne-Scott – Credit: Peter Gavin Hall (Payne-Scott’s son), CC BY-SA 3.0

What’s going to happen to our planet Earth when our Sun turns into a red giant? Dr. Charles Liu explores planetary evolution and death with exoplanet specialist Sam Grunblatt, the Kalbfleisch postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History Department of Astrophysics, who studies planetary archaeology and stellar astrophysics, and co-host Allen Liu. Sam’s most recent paper is about “hot Jupiters” at the end of their lifespans, racing around their stars in orbits just a few days long.

As always, though, we start off with the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the discovery of a third “planetary candidate” orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun. And while these planets might not be able to sustain life, the news is the latest discovery in our developing understanding of stars and exoplanets. Proxima is a red dwarf star that’s in a system with two other stars that are more like our sun, and which may also be hosting their own planets! (And yes, Tatooine gets mentioned yet again, along with a juicy Isaac Asimov reference.)

Before we get to our questions, though, we take a break for a musical interlude celebrating the solar discovery. It turns out that Sam was the Musical Director for the Columbia Kingsman a cappella group, and given that Allen was also the Musical Director of an a cappella group that was part of the Harvard Glee Club, Charles couldn’t resist corralling the pair for a trio.

Our first student question, from Nora in New York City, is about “mini-Neptune exoplanets turning into Super-Earths.” Sam explains how the most common exoplanets we’ve found are either rocky bodies slightly larger than Earth, or gas giants that are much larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and the possibility that stars strip the atmosphere’s of the gas giants away leaving just the rocky cores. 

Next, the trio discuss “Don’t Look Up,” the recent movie ostensibly about the discovery of an asteroid that threatens Earth, but which was really an allegory about climate change and how we humans deal with science and non-science in our lives.

Cody from New York asks whether planets in other solar systems are mostly on the same plane as they are in our solar system. Yes and no, according to Sam. Sometimes they are, but also frequently their orbits don’t line up in the same horizontal plane, and in some extreme cases, they’re wildly divergent.

Finally, Sam shares his favorite exoplanet with us, which was discovered by the TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) space telescope. TOI-561b is a Super-Earth that might still have an atmosphere. one of the first exoplanets we’ve found in the “thick disk” of our galaxy. 

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. Also, if you want to follow Sam, check out his website [INSERT LINK: >] or follow him on Twitter @skgrunblatt.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

Size of the Sun as a Red Giant – Credit: Oona Räisänen, Mrsanitazier CC BY-SA 3.0

Earth, Neptune, and Super-Earth to scale – Credit: Aldaron, CC-BY-SA 3.0

Solar System Illustration – Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, Public Domain

TESS Spacecraft Before Launch – Credit: NASA, Public Domain

Are we living in a golden age of space telescopes? As our minds are being collectively blown by the images of our universe beginning to come from the JWST, our host Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu explore the next space telescope on the horizon, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with our guest, astronomer Dr. Alexandra Greenbaum, PhD.

Dr. Greenbaum is an astronomer at Caltech working on the NGRST, which is set to launch in 2027. Named after Nancy Roman, who created NASA's space astronomy program and is known to many as the “Mother of Hubble,” it’s a NASA observatory designed to unravel the secrets of dark energy and dark matter, search for and image exoplanets, and explore many topics in infrared astrophysics.

As always, though, we jump into the day’s joyfully cool cosmic thing, the incredible first picture of Sagittarius A Star, (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy taken by the Event Horizon Telescope. Dr. Greenbaum explains that the EHT uses signals from many telescopes around the world to gather the data that is combined into images like this stunning photo.

Alexandra works at IPAC, the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech, on the Roman Telescope’s coronagraph instrument, which is going to pave the way for future space photography of exoplanets. The coronagraph eliminates the glare that stars produce and allows astronomers to directly image planets in orbit around them. It will be far more powerful than any other coronagraph ever flown, seeing planets that are almost a billion times fainter than their host star.

Our first question this week comes from Isaac, who asks how the JWST differs from the Hubble. Dr. Greenbaum explains how the JWST’s mirror is made of 18 different mirror segments, whereas Hubble has a single mirror. Also, JWST is an infrared telescope, while Hubble functions primarily with the optical and ultraviolet portions of the spectrum. That means that JWST can see the light from stars stretching back to the earliest periods of our universe.

Chuck and Alex also discuss how the NGRST differs from Hubble and the JWST. It primarily features a wide-field instrument that can look at a huge portion of the sky with different kinds of detectors. The coronagraph instrument is actually a technology demonstration that will help us develop the optical systems to see planets that are otherwise obscured by the overpowering light of the sun they orbit. Dr. Greenbaum also worked on the JWST, and she explains how each one worked to remove solar interference from planets or brown dwarfs orbiting stars.

For our second question, Jayla from North Andover wants to know what’s most exciting about Alexandra’s job as an astronomer. She describes traveling to telescopes all around the world as an observational astronomer before the pandemic, and how wonderfully open and collaborative the field of astronomy is. 

Last but not least, Chuck, Alexandra, and Allen talk about what she’s just read: “Parable of the Sower” by Octavia E. Butler, and how that book helped strengthen her commitment to her career studying the universe.

If you’d like to know more about Dr. Greenbaum’s work and keep up on the developments with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, you can check out roman.ipac.caltech.edu.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

Can your passions for science, science fiction, space, fossils and even opera lead you to a life of adventure and maybe a career in science? 

To find out, Dr. Charles Liu and co-host Allen Liu welcome returning guest Geoff Notkin, The Meteorite Man, and the co-hosts of the “Mission: Interplanetary” podcast, physicist/futurist Dr. Andrew Maynard and chemist/astronaut Dr. Cady Coleman. 

All three of our guests have had interesting journeys and adventures in their careers. They’re here to discuss how the circuitous paths scientists often take in our lives, in an episode that connects, as Cady so perfectly sums up, pieces of the universe falling to earth, science fiction, real space stations, future space stations, physics, astrophysics and shopping!

Chuck starts off the episode talking about… The thrill of the hunt. Geoff describes how he fell in love with exploration and adventure, and spent half his childhood hunting for fossils on the “Jurassic Coast” of Dorset, UK and the other half in the museum looking at meteorites. 

Although she’s most famous as an astronaut who flew on two space shuttle missions and was a member of Expedition 27 to the ISS, Cady tells us about her 2 1/2-month long expedition to Antarctica looking for meteorites. You’ll hear how the sheer number of meteorites that have been found there has transformed the study of meteorites. She also shares how living in tents and moving around the Antarctic environment relate to training for space travel. Find out the geologic reason why we’re more likely to find meteorites in Antarctica than anywhere else, and the challenges posed to that search by runny noses, moraines, and apple cores.

Next, Charles and Andrew discuss his surprising path, from teenage opera singer (something his co-host Cady discovers for the first time along with the rest of us!) to physicist to futurist, with sojourns in risk analysis, the early days of nanotechnology, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and of course, science communication. 

Naturally, with this crew, we’d get around to talking about risk and asteroids. We start off with the Chelyabinsk meteor, which airburst over a heavily populated area in Siberia, Russia in 2013 where about a million people live. Andrew explains that calculating the probability of a large meteor hitting Earth isn’t very straightforward, while his co-host Cady talks about how we’re working to have better measurements and more understanding about asteroids and meteors.

And then we get to “show and tell.” Geoff shares his favorite find, an elephant’s head-shaped iron meteorite he dug up at one of the 15 Henbury meteor craters from a single event in Australia 4600 years ago. Andrew shows off his set of the original CDs for “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” radio series by Douglas Adams, after which Cady describes the poster for Expedition 42 to the ISS with its obvious connection. (If you don’t know why the number 42 is important… READ THE BOOKS! They’re sci-fi classics.) Cady shares the stuffed penguin she brought back from her trip to Antarctica that has actually been to the South Pole. (Believe it or not, there’s more than one gift shop in Antarctica!) And finally, Charles shares something that co-host Allen Liu actually got for him from Allen’s trip to Antarctica – to see what, though, you’re going to have to watch the episode.

If you’d like to know more about Geoff, check out his YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcGREEGQbQV3x-CnOXcXTg. And you can find out more about Andrew and Cady and the Mission Interplanetary podcast here: https://missioninterplanetary.com/.

We hope you enjoy this episode of The LIUniverse, and, if you do, please support us on Patreon. 

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:
– A glacial moraine in Antarctica – Warren B. Hamilton /USGS, Public Domain
– Meteor exploding over Chelyabinsk, Russia – Aleksandr Ivanov, CC-BY 3.0
– The largest of the Henbury Craters – Michael Bemmerl, CC-BY 3.0 de
– ISS Expedition 42 poster – NASA Space Flight Awareness, Public Domain

NOTE: This episode was recorded in early 2022, before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and their attack on the Chernobyl nuclear facility, which we discuss.

What’s up with nuclear fusion? Dr. Charles Liu dives into the heated subject with the help of MIT Nuclear Physicist Christina Migliore and co-host Allen Liu. 

We start with today’s joyfully cool cosmic thing: the JET, or Joint European Torus. JET is a “giant metal donut” in the UK engaged in plasma physics and nuclear fusion. You’ll learn about magnetic containment devices known as “tokamaks,” the most common form of experimental devices with which to create nuclear fusion. Find out about plasma, the fourth state of matter, and how difficult it is to work with. 

Speaking of hot balls of plasma, aka stars, Caroline from the Pingree School asks, “What is fusion and why does it occur in stars?” Find out about different forms of fusion, their sources, and their outputs. Learn about the strongest laser in the world, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore Labs, which is on the cutting edge of generating energy from fusion.

Josh, another student at the Pingree School, wants to know how nuclear fusion would be affected by strong gravitational forces. We explore why stars can use strong gravity to sustain their fusion, but we can’t do that here on Earth…yet.  

We also delve into the two “hottest” topics in the field of nuclear fusion research. First, Christina tells us about the engineering aspect of building high magnetic field devices, including high temperature superconductors. Next, Christina explains her work studying wall interactions with plasma to minimize the creation of hotspots that generate impurities. (Geek Warning: Chuck and Christina nerd out a bit a wavelengths, energy outputs, rectification, cold plasma, boundary conditions, Maxwell’s Equations, and more!)

Pseudoscience rears its ugly head when Chuck and Christina dive into the concept of cold fusion, made famous by Iron Man’s ARC Reactor in the MCU. Before the episode ends, we unpack the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission, the value of each when pursued responsibly, and issues surrounding history, safety and aging infrastructure. And we touch on Chernobyl, the design flaws that led to the situation, and the bureaucratic concerns that pushed it over the edge. Finally, you’ll hear how MIT is developing a new device called SPARC that will create a very strong magnetic field that could eventually let us put fusion generators on the energy grid.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

- Interior of the JET tokamak (2) – Credit: EUROfusion

- National Ignition Facility (NIF) preamplifiers – Credit: Damien Jemison/LLNL

- Interior of the Alcator C-Mod tokamak at MIT – Credit: Bob Mumgaard/Plasma Science and Fusion Center

- The Sun – Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA

- Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor after April 26, 1986. Credit: International Atomic Energy Association (via Creative Commons BY-SA 2.0)

- MIT SPARC – Credit: CAD rendering by T. Henderson, CFS/MIT-PSFC

Welcome to the first ever episode of the LIUniverse, your happy half hour dose of cosmic conversation and geeky banter with host Dr. Charles Liu! In this episode, we talk quasars, “The Expanse”, and more with our guest Jimmy Negus, PhD candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder, and with our co-host Allen Liu. The trio discuss Jimmy’s research on active galactic nuclei (AGNs), including some that might not even be in a galaxy’s nucleus at all, plus some sci-fi stories that have them hooked, and some in which the science really misses the mark.

You’ll discover how something “only” the size of the orbit of Mercury could outshine an entire galaxy, learn how the highest note on the piano can help examine the atmosphere, and find out how a telescope survey with a tortured acronym is bringing a new dimension to astronomical research. You can also explore how Jimmy helps students understand the truly impressive size of our neighborhood in space – even in his new 10-billion-to-1 scale model.

We also answer questions from students and from our patrons, and we have some great ones to kick us off. Ben asks, what’s the difference between a black hole, an AGN and a quasar? Sadie asks, why choose astronomy over other fields of science? Plus, our patron Walter wonders, is there anything in the universe that doesn’t spin or vibrate?

We’re so glad to finally be able to share the LIUniverse podcast with all of you, and we hope you continue to geek out with us for many episodes to come! If you like the episode, please support The LIUniverse on Patreon.

Credits for Images Used in this Episode:

- B20258+35’s host galaxy, NGC 1167 – Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- Quasar (Artist’s rendering) – Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
- The Mice, a pair of merging galaxies – Credit: Hubble ACS
- The Sun from the Colorado scale model solar system – Credit: Jimmy Negus
- The Sloan telescope at Apache Point Observatory – Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- Fiber optics for integral field spectroscopy – Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey
- Dyson Sphere (Artist’s rendering) – Credit: Kevin Gill
- Laser guide star at the Very Large Telescope – Credit: G. Hüdepohl/ESO