This amazing video has a conversation between Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, and Arthur C. Clarke. I was alive when this was recorded, and I had actually spoken with Sagan before this point, so I am sorry I missed this historic chat in person. Luckily there were cameras rolling, so I get to enjoy the event all these decades later. Pay attention as three of the most brilliant people the human race have spawned take a few moments to lay out how the universe actually works for the rest of us.
In Saturn’s Rings covers topics from the big bang to the near future as seen from the perspective of the Cassini-Huygens Mission at Saturn. This is an IMAX film that will be playing in museums and planetariums around the country. Hot Bot is at the opposite end of the intellectual spectrum, but could be fun. Two unpopular teen geeks accidentally discover a life-like super-model sex bot.
This time the images are not computer generated creations, but actual photographs of space. This is an astrophotography contest held by Ciel et Espace Photos in France, and I hope they do it every year. This is their very first year, and the competition is called the Photo Nightscape Awards, or PNA for short. They had a Pro and Amature category, as well as Junior categories for several age ranges, and the images are spectacular. You can catch a glimpse in the video below, but you want to go to the Winners Page and see the full resolution versions for yourself. Many thanks to the folks at Universe Today for the heads up on this one.
The 42nd crew of the ISS has an official poster that honors Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. The folks at Space Dot Com have a great image they claim is the official Expedition 42 poster, I am linking to them because I couldn’t find a copy at NASA.
This Sunday, 21Sep14, The Planetary Society will be doing a special live broadcast to welcome MAVEN to Mars: Planetary Radio Live: MAVEN Arrives at Mars. It starts at 6PM on the west coast, 9PM on the east, and I have no idea what time it will be on Mars. If you happen to be in California for the event, you can attend free if you RSVP, but I suspect most folks will be attending online. They will be tuning into NASA TV for the landing itself, here are the list of folks doing the show:
Moderator:
Mat Kaplan: host and producer, Planetary Radio for The Planetary Society
Guests:
Bruce Betts: Director of Science and Technology, The Planetary Society
Emily Lakdawalla: Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist, The Planetary Society
Bill Nye the Science Guy: CEO, The Planetary Society
Richard Zurek Ph.D: Chief Scientist for the Mars Program Office and Project Scientist for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
It does seem just a little strange to me that a bunch of engineers would be calling a video presentation a radio show, they usually tend to be more accurate with their nomenclature than that. It should be pretty exciting, I for one will be enjoying the program, I hope you will be too.
Maven is the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN spacecraft, and it arrives in Mars orbit in just a few weeks. It’s purpose is to collect data that will allow researchers to figure out how Mars went from a warm wet world just like Earth to the cold, dry globe it is today. This could be very useful knowledge if we want to keep the same thing from happening to our planet. The non-NASA home page for this project is the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.