For those of you following all the events of the International Year of Astronomy, the big news this week is that the 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts have won a Parsec Award. This is a very big deal for the organizers of 365 Days of Astronomy, as well as all of us podcast creators who have been sending in our ‘casts every day. Mark and I (through Loch Ness Productions) have created 8 podcasts already (see my vodcast page here) with three more in the hopper. We’ve also supported the program with a financial donation because we see the grand promise of new media projects like this one. It’s been great fun to create these little audio labors of love and if you haven’t been listening every day, get over to 365 Days of Astronomy and start your audio astronomy adventure.
Special congrats to the 365 Days of Astronomy overall production team — and to all the podcast creators who have been sharing astronomy with listeners around the world.
(Note: for those wondering where I’ve been–I’m here, but my Internet access has been spotty due to an equipment problem with our provider. So, I get short periods each day to check email and post things. It should be fixed in the next day or so and I’ll be back with my regular postings. In the meantime, I’m working on some special projects in astronomy outreach!)
There are countless worlds in our galaxy, all formed in the same process that created this planet you’re sitting/standing on and reading these words from. Pretty awesome thought. I’m a science fiction reader, so of course my thoughts always center on how many of those worlds might have life — in particular, the life we might be able to communicate or even visit (if that were even possible). Finding those worlds isn’t just a matter of pointing a telescope up at stars and looking for little planets circling around them. Stars are bright and big; planets not so much. Most of the time, they’re hidden in the glare of their star — just as Earth would be lost in the Sun’s glare as seen from light-years away.
Most of the planets that HAVE been discovered around other stars are of the Jupiter-class and larger variety. They’re often called “Hot Jupiters” because their temps are so high — but not hot enough to be stars. They’re easier to spot that smaller, Earth-sized worlds. That’s changing now, due to missions like Kepler and COROT, which are designed to find the kinds of planets where life might be hanging out. And, they’re doing it in a variety of ways.
Planet searches are a hot topic right now in astronomy and space science — so much so that my latest episode of The Astronomer’s Universe over at Astrocast.tv focuses on exoplanets and the methods astronomers are using to ferret them out from the glare of their stars. You can watch it below — and by all means, head over to the main site and watch all the segments in this month’s episode!
