5 Minute Science

My latest creative endeavour was brought about by the amazing Laura Conaway. Laura and I first worked together when I blogged for the now sadly gone Bryant Park Project. She landed on her feet at the Rachel Maddow Show and reached out to me in the new year. The result is a growing series of short videos of what I like to call whiteboard science. Each week, Laura and I settle on a scientific topic and break it down into a clear explanation and simple diagrams that can fit on a whiteboard. So far I think we've been successful, but you can be the judge.

Video #1: Kepler Space Mission

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Video #2: Happy Birthday, Pluto

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Video #3: Type-1A Supernova

A New Kind of Supernova -- Not Champagne, Either from The Rachel Maddow Show on Vimeo.

Video #4: Parallax

Parallax: Beyond Wayne's World from The Rachel Maddow Show on Vimeo.

Video #5: Vernal Equinox

Quick Study: The Vernal Equinox from The Rachel Maddow Show on Vimeo.

And We Have A Winner!

The public has spoken. Over 140,000 votes were cast for the next celestial object that the Hubble Space Telescope should observe, and nearly half of them went to the interacting galaxy system known as Arp 274 (also known as NGC 5679). The result is a stunningly beautiful picture of not just two, but three, galaxies roughly 400 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Virgo. The image is dominated by two face-on spiral galaxies with a third compact galaxy in the bottom left. The two bright spots above the right most galaxy are actually foreground stars in the Milky Way. The colors in the image represent the distribution of hydrogen gas, which is the dominant element of stars and of the Universe as a whole. Younger, hotter stars in the spiral arms appear blue, while new star forming nebulae are pink. Older, cooler, yellower stars are located in the center bulges of each galaxy. You can also clearly see the dust lanes lining the spiral arms where new stars are likely to form in the future.


While I personally voted for the edge-on galaxy, I always love a good interacting galaxy system. Even though you can still clearly see the strong spiral structures in the two larger galaxies, it's a safe bet that it won't last for long (at least on galactic time scales - a.k.a. millions of years). Gravity is already hard at work choreographing their cosmic tango.

Hubble Space Telescope - People's Choice

In the spirit of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and presumably to commemorate that magical day in history when Galileo first turned his telescope to the sky, the Hubble Space Telescope is letting the public decide what celestial object it should peer at next.

This is not to say that the public now gets to point Hubble capriciously at whatever strikes its collective fancy. Rather the scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute, who oversee Hubble, have put together a list of six interesting objects that the telescope has never observed. And as you can see there is a good range of objects: galaxies, star forming regions, and planetary nebulae. I personally voted for the edge-on galaxy (NGC 4289) because we don't observe galaxies at that angle very often. And planetary nebulae are so passe, don't you agree?


If you prefer to make your choice based on more than looks alone, there is even a short video describing what we currently know about each object and what a much longer look might tell us about them.

As the infomercials often say, this is a limited offer, quite limited it turns out. You have until Sunday, March 1st to cast your vote. So act now! There nothing like having the power to control a 25,000 lb machine in space.

The Next Five Days of My Life

World Science Festival 101

Brian Greene and Alan Alda were on Charlie Rose a while back to discuss the need for a large scale program such as the World Science Festival to give science a make-over and introduce it to people who might not otherwise be interested. This video is an excerpt from that program and sums up the motivations behind the Festival perfectly.

World Science Festival

The World Science Festival is coming to New York City, May 29th - June 1st, 2008. The inaugural Festival is a four-day celebration of science that aims to shift science from the cultural fringes of our society to the cultural center.

The brainchild of Columbia physicist and string theorist, Brian Greene, the Festival will take place all over the city and will bring together an amazing roster of Nobel Laureates, world renown scientists, intellectual pioneers, artists, and authors to help in this effort. (Full disclosure, I am a volunteer at the World Science Festival and all-around science enthusiast; it is as the latter that I write this post). The Festival will set the stage for discussions, debates, and performances that will both educate and entertain students of all ages and those of us that will always be students at heart.

Lest you think this is just a dry lecture series that will give you college flashbacks, let me assure you it is anything but. There will be film screenings on parallel universes and amnesia, dance performances inspired by string theory and planetary motion, and dramatic productions based on the discovery of oxygen, experiments gone wrong, and Einstein's theory of relativity.

Additionally, there will be a street fair in Washington Square Park all day Saturday the 31st for kids and families to explore the science of sports with Olympic Athletes and members of the NBA and discover the science behind the imagination of Disney involving robotics, pyrotechnics, and special effects.

And of course, for the purists, there will be fascinating conversations on today's hot topics such as sustainable development in cities of the future, the creative impulses in the brain, the search for extreme forms life, the science of morality, and the continued search for a unified theory of physics.

I, for one, am absolutely thrilled that something like this is finally happening! Science festivals with similar goals have been put on overseas in places like Edinburgh and Genoa, but the World Science Festival, here in New York City at the end of this month, will truly be an unprecedented celebration of science and the important role it can and should play in our society. 

(Image credits: Science Festival Foundation)

Science is Everywhere

I will flush this post out later, but just wanted to get this out there as this is what I have been slaving over for the last month!



The World Science Festival has officially been launched. Come to New York City, May 28 - June 1 and you won't be sorry.

Astronomer for a Day...Er, Night

GLOBE at Night is an annual program put together by Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE), which is a worldwide hands-on, school-based science education program. They encourage teachers and students to collaborate with active scientists to investigate their environment here on Earth.

GLOBE at Night is designed to study the spread of light pollution across the surface of our planet. Light pollution is the illumination of the night sky caused by artificial light sources here on earth such as streetlights, billboards, floodlights, stadium lights, etc. Quantifying it is important because it affects more than just astronomers. Cities and suburban areas are only going to continue to grow, and with them the amount of outdoor lighting. In addition to washing out the stars at night, light pollution can mess with both biological and ecological wildlife systems. More importantly it might even impact you, at least the ladies out there, as scientist recently reported finding a link between breast cancer and high amounts of light at night. The Washington Post published an article on this discovery last week and NPR's Bryant Park Project reported the news as well. This year of the program is an especially critical one as population and census data tell us that more than half the people on Earth are expected to be currently living in cities.

Now while this isn't becoming an environmental blog, I bring this to your attention because there is an astronomical connection here. As I mentioned, astronomers are not big fans of light pollution which is why most major telescopes are far away from big cities and towns and from most light sources altogether, often in deserts or on mountaintops or both. In fact, the Canary Islands of Spain have passed a lighting ordinance to preserve the visibility of the telescopes facilities located there. The University of Hawai'i has a great website dedicated to the importance of reducing light pollution. 

Your chance to help this effort comes any night between now and March 8th when you decide to participate in the GLOBE at Night program. You will be asked to observe and record the magnitude of visible stars where you live as a means of measuring the light pollution at your location. Using the constellation Orion, you will compare how bright it appears to you with example charts on the web to approximate the apparent magnitude of the stars where you are. (They will guide you through the steps, so don't worry if you the magnitude of stars means nothing to you). This will provide the data necessary to estimate your amount of light pollution. Then you can share your results online and compare the light pollution at your location with others around the world, like a global science project of sorts!

Just follow these five easy steps and you too can be an astronomer for a night!