2005 Podcasts

(December 21, 2005) Dr. Karen Meech of the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy shares results of the Deep Impact Mission. The mission arrived at comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005 to learn what chemicals may have been present in the Solar System 4.5 billion years ago.

Science Standards: Structure and properties of matter; chemical reactions; motions and forces; origin and evolution of the Solar System.

(October 17, 2005) Dr. Charles Steidel of the California Institute of Technology talks about an exciting time in our Universe, marked with supernova explosions, intensely burning quasars and star formation rates beyond anything ever seen since. These events are responsible for shaping much of the large-scale structure that we see in the Universe today.

Science Standards: Gravitational force of matter, properties of energy; transfer and transformation.

(September 22, 2005) Dr. Puragra Guhathakurta (“Raja”) of the University of California, in collaboration with Sandra Faber, presents “The Milky Way, Schrodinger’s Cat, and You,” a lecture about the birth and evolution of galaxies like the Milky Way. Guhathakurta takes us back in time to the earliest imaginable instant in the history of the Universe—an infinitesimal fraction of a second after the Big Bang. In this journey Guhathakurta provides evidence for how quantum mechanics is responsible for the large scale structure of the Universe we see today.

Science Standards: Relationships among force, mass and motion; transformation of energy; effects of change on systems in the natural world.