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Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

43 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 5 ratings

Listen to exciting, non-technical talks on some of the most interesting developments in astronomy and space science. Founded in 1999, the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures are presented on six Wednesday evenings during each school year at Foothill College, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley. Speakers include a wide range of noted scientists, explaining astronomical developments in everyday language. The series is organized and moderated by Foothill's astronomy instructor emeritus Andrew Fraknoi and jointly sponsored by the Foothill College Physical Science, Math, and Engineering Division, the SETI Institute, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the University of California Observatories (including the Lick Observatory.)

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Episodes

Exploring the Gravitational Wave Universe

February 21, 2024 03:00 - 1 hour - 48.1 MB

Speaker: Dr. Brian Lantz (Stanford University) Feb. 7, 2024 Measuring gravitational waves is a revolutionary new way to do astronomy.  They were predicted by Einstein, but it was not until 2015, that LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) first detected one of these waves. They were tiny ripples in space itself, generated by the collision of two black holes. Since then, LIGO and its international partners have measured nearly 100 signals. Dr. Lantz explains what we ca...

Water Above, Water Below: The Many Roles of Water in Making Planets Habitable

December 05, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 51.8 MB

Dr. Laura Schaefer (Stanford University): Water is everywhere. Its atoms, hydrogen and oxygen, are the first and fifth most abundant elements in the universe. Water is found in abundance in many environments; it finds its way into planets of all shapes and sizes, where it modifies the properties of everything it touches. Water is crucial to life, both as a habitat and as a solvent. But it also has many other roles in the evolution of habitable and uninhabitable environments on a planetary sc...

The Peril and Profit of Near-Earth Objects

October 29, 2023 17:00 - 1 hour - 48.6 MB

A Talk by Dr. Robert Jedicke (U of Hawaii) Oct. 11, 2023 Near-Earth objects present both an existential threat to human civilization and an extraordinary opportunity to help our exploration and expansion across the solar system. Dr. Jedicke explains that the risk of a sudden, civilization-altering collision with an asteroid or comet has markedly diminished in recent decades -- due to diligent astronomical surveys -- but a significant level of danger persists. At the same time, remarkable st...

SPECIAL: An Interview with Frank Drake (conducted by Andrew Fraknoi)

July 17, 2023 17:00 - 44 minutes - 30.3 MB

June 2012 Frank Drake (1930-2022) was known as the "father of SETI science" -- he was the scientist who conducted the first radio survey for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, and came up with the formula for estimating the likelihood of such civilizations, now called the Drake Equation.  In June 2012, the SETI Institute sponsored a three-day public event called SETICon. One highlight of the program was an interview with Drake (who served as the founding President of the Institute...

Ashes to Ashes, Earth to Earth, Dust to Dust: The Birth and Death of Worlds

July 14, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 45 MB

with Dr. Eugene Chiang (University of California, Berkeley) June 21, 2023 We now know that our solar system is but one of countless others. Where did all these planets come from? What are their fates, and ours? Dr. Chiang describes the life cycle of planets, how they are born and die, and how they are born again. The story combines the latest observations from a wide range of telescope with our evolving theoretical understanding of the role planets play in the development of the cosmos.

An Eclipse Double-Header: Two North American Eclipses of the Sun in 2023 & 2024 (with Andrew Fraknoi)

May 18, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 43.4 MB

North America will be treated to two eclipses of the Sun in the 2023-24 school year: an annular eclipse on Oct. 14, 2023 and a total eclipse on Apr. 8, 2024.  Some 500 million people will be in a position to see at least a partial eclipse on each date. Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi (Fromm Institute, University of San Francisco) discusses the cause of eclipses (and why Earth's eclipses are unique), the circumstances of each coming eclipse and where each will be visible, plus how to view eclipses ...

The First Results from the James Webb Space Telescope (with Dr. Alex Filippenko)

March 13, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 61.9 MB

Dr. Alex Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley) Mar. 8, 2023 We have a new supersensitive eye in the cosmic sky. Parked nearly one million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is 100 times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST observes at the red to the mid-infrared parts of the spectrum, offering new insights into a vast array of objects and processes -- including solar system formation, star birth and death, galaxy evolution, and, perhaps, the ori...

Our Boldest Effort to Answer our Oldest Question: Breakthrough-Listen Search for Intelligent Life

February 20, 2023 00:00 - 1 hour - 58.6 MB

For centuries, humans have gazed at the night sky and wondered if any intelligent life forms like us might be out there.  In 2015, the Breakthrough Foundation gave a $100 million grant to the University of California at Berkeley to undertake the most comprehensive search for signals from an extra-terrestrial civilization. Dr. Steve Croft, of the University of California, Berkeley, SETI Center,  describes the project, introduces the many radio telescopes around the world it is using in the se...

Spacetime Symphony: Gravitational Waves from Merging Black Holes

January 26, 2023 06:00 - 1 hour - 48 MB

Talk by Dr. Lynn Cominsky (Sonoma State University) Gravitational waves are predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.  They travel at the speed of light, but are much harder to detect than light waves.  On September 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) received the first direct gravitational wave signals.  The event that produced them was the merger of two distant and massive black holes that were in mutual orbit. Prof. Cominsky presents an int...

100 Years of Einstein's Relativity (And How it Underlies Our Modern Understanding of the Universe)

December 29, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 54.9 MB

With Dr. Jeffrey Bennett (University of Colorado) 2015 marked the 100th anniversary of Einstein's completion of his General Theory of Relativity, the comprehensive theory of space, time, and gravity. In everyday language, Dr. Bennett explains the basic ideas of Einstein's work (both his special and general theories) and shows how Einstein's remarkable ideas are being confirmed today by a range of astronomical observations.  He concludes with four reasons why relativity should matter to ever...

Space Weather and the Question of Human Survivability (with Dr. Tom Berger)

December 12, 2022 21:00 - 1 hour - 63.3 MB

The Sun can unleash violent “space weather” -- storms that can radiate X-rays and even gamma rays into space, send giant clouds of magnetic plasma slamming into the Earth and other planets, and spray firehoses of charged particles throughout interplanetary space. On Earth, we are mostly protected from the Sun’s wrath by our magnetic field and atmosphere, but astronauts venturing to the Moon and Mars will be vulnerable to these potentially deadly solar storms. Dr. Tom Berger (University of Co...

Is Anyone out There: The Hundred-Million Dollar "Breakthrough: Listen" Project

December 05, 2022 18:00 - 1 hour - 53.9 MB

with Dr. Dan Werthimer of the University of California, Berkeley What is the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe and how might we detect signals from alien civilizations?  Dr. Werthimer describes current and future projects searching for such signals, including the new $100-million Breakthrough Prize Foundation "Listen" project  to "tune in" on messages that civilizations around other stars might be sending out.  He shows how new technologies are revolutionizing the search...

A Planet for Goldilocks: Kepler and the Search for Living Worlds

October 31, 2022 00:00 - 1 hour - 61.2 MB

With Dr. Natalie Batalha (NASA, Kepler Mission Project Scientist) NASA's Kepler Mission launched in 2009 with the objective of finding "Goldilocks planets" orbiting other stars like our Sun -- those that are not too hot, not too cold, but just right. The space telescope opened our eyes to the many terrestrial-sized planets that populate the galaxy (including several right in our neighborhood,) as well as to exotic worlds unlike anything that exists in the solar system.  Dr. Batalha gives an...

The Fast Radio Sky: A New Window on the Violent Universe

October 25, 2022 04:00 - 1 hour - 58.4 MB

In this episode, Dr. Victoria Kaspi (McGill University) introduces us to a brand-new mystery in the skies -- superfast bursts of radio waves whose source is still unknown.  These energetic bursts come from all over the sky (and all over the universe,) pack a huge amount of energy, and typically last a few thousandths of a second.  Like a detective in the middle of a case, Dr. Kaspi fills us in on the story of how new observations (especially with the CHIME telescope project which she heads) ...

Colliding Neutron Stars, Gravity Waves, and the Origin of the Heavy Elements

August 23, 2022 03:00 - 1 hour - 56.1 MB

with Prof. Eliot Quataert (University of California, Berkeley) In the previous decade, one third of the world's astronomers became involved in a single project --  observing a distant and violent event,  when two "star corpses" called neutron stars collided and exploded.  This represented the first time in the history of astronomy that a cosmic event was observed with both gravity waves (first predicted by Einstein) and light.   We now call this event the birth of "multi-messenger astronomy...

When Mars Was Like Earth: Five Years of Exploration with the Curiosity Rover

August 02, 2022 06:00 - 1 hour - 62.3 MB

Speaker: Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory  For five years, Curiosity explored Gale Crater, one of the most intriguing locations on Mars -- once the site of an ancient lake.  In this talk, the mission's Project Scientist discussed what the rover was capable of and the many things it discovered on and about  the red planet.  In particular, he fills us in on the evidence that ancient Mars, billions of years ago, was much more like the Earth -- with a thicker atmosphere ...

Rubble Piles in the Sky: The Science, Exploration, and Danger of Near-Earth Asteroids

July 15, 2022 18:00 - 1 hour - 42.8 MB

with Dr, Michael Busch (SETI Institute) Near-Earth asteroids are a population of small bodies whose orbits around the Sun cross or come near our planet’s orbit.  They turn out to be unusual physical environments: essentially rubble piles. They represent a natural hazard we ignore at our peril, because some of these bodies have the potential to impact Earth.  Dr. Busch reviews the near-Earth asteroid population, programs to track and characterize such asteroids, and current efforts to address...

Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto (with Alan Stern & David Grinspoon)

June 24, 2022 16:00 - 1 hour - 71.2 MB

In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto, revealing its surface to our view for the first time. In this program, Drs. Alan Stern and David Grinspoon give us an insider's view of how this complex mission came to be and what it discovered at the edge of our solar system.  Their recent book  (with the same title) tells the full story of the mission, its ground-breaking discoveries at Pluto, and where it's going next.  Here is the story of path-breaking exploration and new science...

Do Humans Have What it Takes to Thrive in this Universe?

June 01, 2022 21:00 - 1 hour - 56.9 MB

Dr. Sandra Faber (University of California, Santa Cruz) Do Humans Have What it Takes to Thrive in this Universe? In this thought-provoking talk, cosmologist (and National Medal of Science winner) Dr. Sandra Faber takes a look at our cosmic origins, the future of the Earth as a habitable planet, and what humans need to do to thrive in the long-term future.  She draws some sobering conclusions from the laws of physics and the sustainability of our present-day use of energy and resources.  And...

A Sharper Image: Seeing Colliding Galaxies with Adaptive Optics (with Dr. Claire Max)

May 12, 2022 22:00 - 1 hour - 52.3 MB

When light from space enters Earth’s atmosphere, it is distorted and displaced, something our eyes perceive as “twinkling.”  Adaptive optics can remove a great deal of this distortion, essentially restoring much of the detail we’ve been robbed off in our view of the stars and galaxies.  Dr. Max, a world-renowned pioneer in this technique, shows us how modern lasers allow her to do this very precisely.  And she discusses how this technique is giving us sharper views of such cosmic events as t...

Cosmobiology: Recent Progress in Cosmology, Exoplanets, and the Prerequisites for Life in the Universe

May 03, 2022 03:00 - 1 hour - 50.4 MB

In this talk, astrobiologist Charles Lineweaver discusses the history of life on Earth and what we can deduce from our understanding of the universe about the existence and history of life elsewhere.  He recounts the ongoing discovery of large numbers of exoplanets -- planets orbiting other stars -- and what we can learn from the varieties of planets that are being found.  He challenges us to think about what parts in the development of intelligent life on Earth would necessarily happen else...

Cosmology and Ambition: Losing the Nobel Prize (with Dr. Brian Keating)

April 08, 2022 01:00 - 1 hour - 52.4 MB

What would it have been like to be an eyewitness to the Big Bang? In 2014, astronomers using the powerful BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole thought they’d glimpsed evidence of the period of cosmic inflation at the beginning of time. Millions around the world tuned in to the announcement, and Nobel whispers spread like wildfire. But had these scientists been deceived by a galactic mirage? In this popular-level talk, cosmologist Brian Keating tells the inside story of BICEP2’s detection and t...

Planets Under Our Feet: The Caves on Earth, Mars, and Beyond (with Dr. Penelope Boston)

March 26, 2022 05:00 - 1 hour - 57 MB

New exploration indicates that caves may be more common on rocky and icy worlds in our Solar System than we have thought in the past. Caves below the Earth show us a very different planet than the familiar one we experience on the surface.  Each dark cave system has its own micro-organisms and distinctive mineral and chemical properties.  Dr. Penelope Boston, NASA Ames Research Center, takes us on a tour of the some of the most spectacular caves under the Earth and the unusual life-forms the...

Dark Star: The Invisible Universe of Brown Dwarfs (with Dr. Adam Burgasser)

March 15, 2022 16:00 - 1 hour - 59.1 MB

In this illustrated talk, Dr. Burgasser explains what happens when a newly forming star doesn't have "what it takes" to produce energy in its core in an ongoing way.  This results in "failed stars" or brown dwarfs -- objects that were predicted in theory, but only discovered in the 1990's.   Today, many thousands of these brown dwarfs are known, spanning a wide range of temperatures and masses, and occupying a unique niche at the intersection of stars and planets. Dr. Burgasser discusses how...

Charon, Pluto’s Companion: What We’re Learning from New Horizons (with Dr. Ross Beyer)

March 01, 2022 23:00 - 1 hour - 52.8 MB

Pluto’s large moon Charon turned out to be far more interesting than astronomers expected.  Pluto was the star when the New Horizons probe flew by, but the features on Charon’s surface tell a fascinating tale of how icy worlds could form far from the gravitational influences of the giant planets.  There is evidence of a world-wide sub-surface ocean early on, and of global expansion as that ocean froze solid.  Charon’s surface also has a region of plains where icy materials may once have flow...

Living with a Star: A Life-friendly Planetary Environment (with Dr. Michelle Thaller)

February 17, 2022 02:00 - 1 hour - 58.5 MB

In this nontechnical talk, illustrated with the latest images and video, Dr. Thaller asks what makes a world habitable?  What creates and sustains an environment friendly to life?  She then discusses the history of life on Earth and what we are learning about our planet, and our neighbors Mars and Venus from such missions as the Parker Solar Probe, the laboratories aboard our Mars rovers, and the probes that have explored asteroids and comets, including one that is bringing samples back to E...

Beyond: Our Future in Space (with Dr. Chris Impey)

January 30, 2022 01:00 - 1 hour - 64 MB

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

Ocean Worlds in Our Solar System (with Dr. Kevin Hand)

January 07, 2022 23:00 - 1 hour - 64.1 MB

 Where is the best place to find living life beyond Earth? It may be that the small, ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn harbor some of the most habitable real estate in our Solar System. Life loves liquid water and these moons have lots of it!  Such oceans worlds have likely persisted for much of the history of the solar system, and as a result they are compelling targets for our exploration. Dr. Kevin Hand (of the Jet Propulsion Lab) explains the science behind our understanding of the...

Meet the Neighbors: Exploring Planets Orbiting Nearby Stars (with Dr. Courtney Dressing)

December 21, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 44.9 MB

The NASA Kepler mission revealed that our Galaxy is teeming with planetary systems and that Earth-sized planets are common.  However, most of the planets detected by Kepler orbit stars too faint to permit detailed study. The NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS,) launched in 2018, is finding hundreds of small planets orbiting stars that are much closer and brighter.  Dr. Dressing (Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley) describes the TESS missi...

The Biggest Sky Survey Ever Undertaken: Exploring the Universe with the Rubin Observatory (with Dr. Phil Marshall)

December 14, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 47.6 MB

The Vera Rubin Observatory will house a survey telescope that will image the night sky faster and deeper than ever before. Its camera, at 3.6 Gigapixels, will be the biggest digital camera ever built. The Rubin Observatory will be able to image the entire visible sky every few nights, and build up, over 10 years, a 900-frame full color movie of the deep night sky. This will enable a wide variety of scientific explorations, from the outer reaches of our Solar System, through our Milky Way Gal...

Postcards from Mars: The Latest from Our Robot Explorers (with Dr. Jim Bell)

November 22, 2021 21:00 - 1 hour - 64.3 MB

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

The Last Stargazers: Behind the Scenes in Astronomy (with Dr. Emily Levesque)

November 02, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 55.4 MB

A bird that mimicked a black hole. The astronomer that discovered microwave ovens. A telescope that got shot. The science of astronomy is filled with true stories (and tall tales) of the adventures and misadventures that accompany our exploration of the universe. Dr. Levesque, who interviewed over 100 astronomers for her well-reviewed popular book, The Last Stargazers,  takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of life as a professional astronomer. We learn about some of the most powerful telesco...

Will the 21st Century be the Time we Discover Life Beyond Earth (with Dr. Jill Tarter)

October 22, 2021 00:00 - 1 hour - 51.1 MB

Craig Venter & Daniel Cohen suggested that if the 20th century was the century of physics, the 21st century will be the century of biology on our planet.  Jill Tarter believes that their idea will be extended beyond the surface of our world, and that we may soon have the first opportunity to study biology that developed on other worlds.  In this lecture, recorded in 2017, she talks about her vision of the future of understanding life on Earth and beyond our planet.  And she discusses project...

The Monster Black Hole at the Center of the Milky Way (with Nobel Laureate Andrea Ghez)

October 09, 2021 16:00 - 1 hour - 49.3 MB

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

Encounter with Ultima Thule: The Most Distant Object Humanity Has Ever Explored (with Dr. Jeff Moore)

September 26, 2021 16:00 - 55 minutes - 38.1 MB

After encountering Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft, for the first time flew by a member of the Kuiper Belt of icy objects beyond Neptune.  This particular object, informally named “Ultimate Thule” (meaning the farthest place beyond the known world,) turned out to be a “contact binary” – two smaller icy worlds stuck together. Dr. Jeff Moore, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center,  shares an insider’s view (with great images) of how the mission got there and what we learned at ...

What Does a Black Hole Look Like: How We Got our First Picture (With Prof. Eliot Quataert)

September 15, 2021 03:00 - 1 hour - 53.2 MB

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

A Little Talk about Aliens with Dr. Adam Frank

August 23, 2021 18:00 - 1 hour - 54.6 MB

Dr. Adam Frank (U of Rochester) first discusses the history of our search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), including the Drake Equation, the Fermi Paradox, and the searches for radio messages from other civilizations that have taken place since 1960.  He then explains how new research and funding is expanding our thinking about the ways we might find evidence of intelligent life among the stars.  He focuses on "techno-signatures" -- ways in which we might identify signs of alien te...

Planet 9 from Outer Space with Dr. Michael Brown

August 14, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 53.3 MB

Dr. Brown (whose discovery of dwarf planet Eris led to the reclassification of Pluto) discusses the history of planetary discovery (and demotion), why we think a new, larger Planet 9 is on the verge of being found, and the techniques that we are using to try to find this very faint body lurking in the far reaches of our planetary system.  This was recorded Nov. 11, 2020. 

Black Hole Survival Guide with Dr. Janna Levin

August 01, 2021 20:00 - 1 hour - 48.5 MB

May 22, 2021,  Dr. Janna Levin (Columbia University's Barnard College) Dr. Levin helps us to understand, and to find delight in, black holes – perhaps the most opaque theoretical construct ever imagined by physicists. She takes us on an exploratory tour of the neighborhood of a black hole, and help us feel the visceral experience of encountering black holes of different masses.  The title of the talk is also the title of her recently published popular-level book.  (Originally scheduled for A...

Lick Observatory During Pandemics: 1918 and 2020 (with Dr. Elinor Gates)

July 06, 2021 22:00 - 1 hour - 49.4 MB

Lick Observatory, the first continuously inhabited mountain-top observatory in the world, has been doing ground-breaking research since its opening in 1888.  30 years after Lick Observatory established itself as a leader in astronomical research, the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic hit the United States.  Research, while hampered by the conditions at the time, continued with the dedicated efforts of some of the notable astronomers of the day.  In 2020, the Observatory was hit by both the current p...

The Hunt for Dark Matter in the Universe with Dr. Tom Shutt

June 29, 2021 03:00 - 1 hour - 61.1 MB

Astronomers today understand that the universe is full of a mysterious substance they call “dark matter” (because it doesn’t give off any light or other radiation we can detect.)  Dr. Tom Shutt (of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center) discusses the motivation behind the multi-decade, world-wide effort to test the idea that dark matter is in the form of particles as small as a neutrino but as heavy as an atom.  He describes the experiment he is involved with, that uses 7 tons of liquefied ...

How a Smooth Early Universe Grew into Everyone You Know with Dr. John Mather

June 20, 2021 22:00 - 1 hour - 43.4 MB

Nobel Prize laureate Dr. John Mather, explains how the early cosmos (whose precise characteristics he helped pin down) became our present-day universe of galaxies, stars, and planets.  Dr. Mather is the Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (which will be a much larger instrument than the Hubble when it is launched in late 2021).  He also discusses the history of the Webb telescope and how it is designed, and then suggests some of the exciting things this telescope will be abl...

How a Smooth Early Universe Grew into Everyone You Know (with Nobel Laureate John Mather)

June 20, 2021 22:00 - 1 hour - 43.4 MB

Nobel Physics Prize laureate, Dr. John Mather, explains how the early cosmos (whose precise characteristics he helped pin down) became our present-day universe of galaxies, stars, and planets.  Dr. Mather is the Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope (which will be a much larger instrument than the Hubble when it is launched in late 2021).  He also discusses the history of the Webb telescope and how it is designed, and then suggests some of the exciting things this telescope wi...