Episode 2

The second in our series of videos (vodcasts) on space weather has gone live on the MIT Haystack Observatory Web site. We are currently working on a third episode to be out in early October. The series teaches about space weather and its effects on our planet and our technology.

This second episode is just about 4 minutes long and talks about the main ingredients of space weather:  magnetic fields and plasmas.  It was a challenging one to produce because I wanted to find a suitable-level model of magnetic field generation inside our own planet, and finally ended up creating my own. I also ended up creating a basic little visual sequence about how plasmas form.

Episode 1 is an introduction and is 6.5 minutes long. Both star scientist Philip J. Erickson (who is an atmospheric researcher at MIT Haystack) and yours truly gets to do the voice-over work. The episodes are aimed at about a 5th or 6th grade level and are ideal for classroom or home use. They’re accompanied by a page of links for further investigation, and we’re working on getting closed-captioning versions ready, as well. Eventually we’ll get an evaluation form up there, so if you’re a teacher and you’re using these, we’ll be interested in your feedback. Check ’em out!