Also check out Bente Bye’s wonderful installment of A Green Space — A Green Earth, tying Earth science and the Haiti earthquake together into a compelling story. It’s often tempting when we study Earth systems in geology or atmospheric conditions on a planet or volcanic systems to overlook the human impact that changes in those systems can have. We live on an active planet — we formed here, we evolved in its ecological niches, and in some very real senses, we are changing the planet by our presence. We often forget that the planet can change US — as the Haiti earthquake so profoundly illustrates. This is something that geologists and other earth scientists know by heart.
Bente is an astrophysicist and earth science expert living in Norway. She specializes in observing planet Earth and describing how it changes and what those changes mean to us. Her episode is in the best tradition of earth science — reporting what happened, how it happened, and going beyond the physics of the situation to the actual human toll that living on an active planet takes. Check out her episode here.
There’s a lot more on this month’s Astrocast.TV, including what’s up in the sky for skygazers in February, and a look at Mars exploration. For the full program, visit the Astrocast.TV website.
As anybody who’s surfed the Web any length of time at all knows, there’s a bounty of information out there about astronomy and space exploration. It seems that every time I turn around there’s a new web site or blog or online media presence devoted to the subjects.
Of course, long-time readers here know that I’ve been blogging and writing about astronomy-related topics online since the mid-1990s. It’s a fun gig and for some years now, it’s been part of my regular job as vice-president of Loch Ness Productions — a production company my husband and I started some years back. We produce fulldome video shows (for fulldome planetarium theaters). I’ve written more than two dozen shows over the years and am working on new ones as we speak. Recently, we branched out to create vodcasts and podcasts for such clients as the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and Haystack Observatory. We also sponsored and produced for the 365 Days of Astronomy project in 2009, and I’m producing more podcasts for the project in 2010.
In addition to my multimedia projects, I’ve also written exhibits for Griffith Observatory and the California Academy of Sciences, and am working on a set of exhibits for NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory. I have worked on a wide variety of other materials that help museums and science centers and observatories bring the wonders of astronomy and space exploration to anybody who’s interested in learning about it. That’s my day (and night) job, and it’s so darned cool that I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world! If it’s about astronomy and space exploration — I get to write about it in whatever media I wish.
Which brings me to another cool outreach effort I’ve been involved in for almost a year now — an online “TV” segment about what astronomers are observing and learning. Last year, I wrote a short little space-related article for the New York Times and that led to my being contacted by the producer of Astrocast.TV, an online news magazine about astronomy and space science that shows up on the first of each month. After some discussion, I agreed to become the producer of a segment called The Astronomer’s Universe.
I’ve worked on seven segments so far, and two more will show up in February highlighting the recent American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. Here’s a little promo video featuring our series host Solar System Ambassador Greg Redfern, talking about each of our segments. Check it out and then make Astrocast.TV a regular stop in your astronomy and space science web-surfing routine! I especially urge you to check out our February 1st episode, which will feature not only my AAS interviews, but a special segment on Earth science, created by another Astrocast.TV producer, Bente Lilje Bye!
