Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Speaker: Dr. Brian Lantz (Stanford University)
Feb. 7, 2024
Measuring gravitational waves is a revolutionary new way to do astronomy.  They were predicted by Einstein, but it was not until 2015, that LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) first detected one of these waves. They were tiny ripples in space itself, generated by the collision of two black holes. Since then, LIGO and its international partners have measured nearly 100 signals. Dr. Lantz explains what we can learn from these bursts of energy and just how it is possible to measure a wave which stretches our detector 1000 times less than the diameter of a proton. And he discusses what's coming next in our search for these tell-tale ripples in space? 
Dr. Lantz is the scientific leader for the Advanced LIGO seismic isolation system,

Dr. Laura Schaefer (Stanford University):
Water is everywhere. Its atoms, hydrogen and oxygen, are the first and fifth most abundant elements in the universe. Water is found in abundance in many environments; it finds its way into planets of all shapes and sizes, where it modifies the properties of everything it touches. Water is crucial to life, both as a habitat and as a solvent. But it also has many other roles in the evolution of habitable and uninhabitable environments on a planetary scale. In this talk, Dr. Schaefer discusses the ways in which Earth acquired its water, how water modifies the evolution and habitability of the Earth, and how the habitability of rocky planets orbiting other stars may be different.  

Laura Schaefer is an Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Stanford University. She is a planetary scientist who focuses on how gases and rocks react with each other to form the atmospheres of rocky planets, both inside and outside the Solar System.  

The talk was given November 15, 2023.

A Talk by Dr. Robert Jedicke (U of Hawaii)
Oct. 11, 2023

Near-Earth objects present both an existential threat to human civilization and an extraordinary opportunity to help our exploration and expansion across the solar system. Dr. Jedicke explains that the risk of a sudden, civilization-altering collision with an asteroid or comet has markedly diminished in recent decades -- due to diligent astronomical surveys -- but a significant level of danger persists. At the same time, remarkable strides have been made in advancing technologies that pave the way for a new vision of space exploration – one that involves missions and outposts within the inner solar system fueled by resources extracted from near-Earth asteroids. These objects contain exploitable extraterrestrial resources delivered free to the inner solar system, and they have been naturally preprocessed into objects the ideal size for industrial operations. 

Robert Jedicke obtained his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from the University of Toronto and held post-doctoral positions at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and at the University of Arizona’s Lunar & Planetary Laboratory. At the University of Hawai`i’s Institute for Astronomy for the last 20 years, he managed the development of the Moving Object Processing System for the Pan-STARRS telescope on Maui.

June 2012
Frank Drake (1930-2022) was known as the "father of SETI science" -- he was the scientist who conducted the first radio survey for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, and came up with the formula for estimating the likelihood of such civilizations, now called the Drake Equation. 

In June 2012, the SETI Institute sponsored a three-day public event called SETICon. One highlight of the program was an interview with Drake (who served as the founding President of the Institute board. )  It was conducted by SETI Institute board member and veteran astronomy educator Andrew Fraknoi.  The discussion ranged widely over Dr. Drake's career and current thinking.  It included reminiscences of Project OZMA, that first experiment searching for signals from civilizations among the stars, and his current view of the Drake Equation.  He also reflects on a number of modern developments, including the discovery of numerous planets orbiting other stars and new ways of searching for extra-terrestrial civilizations.

During the Summer, when the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures take a vacation, we thought you might enjoy this special podcast for its historical value, now that Frank Drake has passed away.

with Dr. Eugene Chiang (University of California, Berkeley)
June 21, 2023
We now know that our solar system is but one of countless others. Where did all these planets come from? What are their fates, and ours? Dr. Chiang describes the life cycle of planets, how they are born and die, and how they are born again. The story combines the latest observations from a wide range of telescope with our evolving theoretical understanding of the role planets play in the development of the cosmos.

North America will be treated to two eclipses of the Sun in the 2023-24 school year: an annular eclipse on Oct. 14, 2023 and a total eclipse on Apr. 8, 2024.  Some 500 million people will be in a position to see at least a partial eclipse on each date. Astronomer Andrew Fraknoi (Fromm Institute, University of San Francisco) discusses the cause of eclipses (and why Earth's eclipses are unique), the circumstances of each coming eclipse and where each will be visible, plus how to view eclipses safely.  He shows maps of the eclipse paths and provides URLs to where you can get free information materials to help you enjoy the eclipses without hurting your eyes, wherever you are.  (A free booklet, co-authored by Fraknoi, with some of this material is also available at http://bit.ly/eclipsesforlibraries )

Dr. Alex Filippenko (University of California, Berkeley)
Mar. 8, 2023
We have a new supersensitive eye in the cosmic sky. Parked nearly one million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is 100 times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope. JWST observes at the red to the mid-infrared parts of the spectrum, offering new insights into a vast array of objects and processes -- including solar system formation, star birth and death, galaxy evolution, and, perhaps, the origins of life. Dr. Filippenko is a member of several teams of astronomers who are and will be observing using JWST.  Showing some of the best new images, he gives us the inside scoop on what astronomers expect the telescope to do and what they have already learned from the first months of the telescope's operation.  

Dr. Filippenko was voted the University of California, Berkeley's "best professor" nine times! He has produced five astronomy video courses with The Great Courses, co-authored an award-winning astronomy textbook, and appeared in about 100 TV documentaries.

For centuries, humans have gazed at the night sky and wondered if any intelligent life forms like us might be out there.  In 2015, the Breakthrough Foundation gave a $100 million grant to the University of California at Berkeley to undertake the most comprehensive search for signals from an extra-terrestrial civilization. Dr. Steve Croft, of the University of California, Berkeley, SETI Center,  describes the project, introduces the many radio telescopes around the world it is using in the search, and explains how modern technology, including AI, is being used to  include more stars, more frequencies (channels) and more ways a signal might be sent.

Talk by Dr. Lynn Cominsky (Sonoma State University)
Gravitational waves are predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity.  They travel at the speed of light, but are much harder to detect than light waves.  On September 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) received the first direct gravitational wave signals.  The event that produced them was the merger of two distant and massive black holes that were in mutual orbit. Prof. Cominsky presents an introduction to LIGO, to gravitational waves and how they were detected, and to the kinds of black holes that "make waves" in the fabric of space and time.  Originally recorded on Nov. 2, 2016.

With Dr. Jeffrey Bennett (University of Colorado)

2015 marked the 100th anniversary of Einstein's completion of his General Theory of Relativity, the comprehensive theory of space, time, and gravity. In everyday language, Dr. Bennett explains the basic ideas of Einstein's work (both his special and general theories) and shows how Einstein's remarkable ideas are being confirmed today by a range of astronomical observations.  He concludes with four reasons why relativity should matter to everyone.  (Recorded in 2015)

Dr. Jeffrey Bennett is the lead author of one the most popular introductory astronomy textbooks, and has written a number of books for children as well as for teachers. He is considered one of the leading educators in the field of astronomy.

The Sun can unleash violent “space weather” -- storms that can radiate X-rays and even gamma rays into space, send giant clouds of magnetic plasma slamming into the Earth and other planets, and spray firehoses of charged particles throughout interplanetary space. On Earth, we are mostly protected from the Sun’s wrath by our magnetic field and atmosphere, but astronauts venturing to the Moon and Mars will be vulnerable to these potentially deadly solar storms. Dr. Tom Berger (University of Colorado) discusses our current understanding of the interplanetary space environment, describes some extreme space weather events in history, and examines how well we can currently predict space weather and its impacts.  Recorded Dec. 7, 2022.

Tom Berger is the Executive Director of the University of Colorado’s Space Weather Technology, Research, and Education Center, which combines traditional space physics research with technology and education to bridge the wide gap between research on the Sun and operational space weather forecasting. He was formerly the director of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, helped develop the world’s largest solar telescope on the island of Maui (the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope), and has been a co-investigator on international missions to study changes in the Sun’s magnetic field.

with Dr. Dan Werthimer of the University of California, Berkeley

What is the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe and how might we detect signals from alien civilizations?  Dr. Werthimer describes current and future projects searching for such signals, including the new $100-million Breakthrough Prize Foundation "Listen" project  to "tune in" on messages that civilizations around other stars might be sending out.  He shows how new technologies are revolutionizing the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI).  
Dr. Werthimer was one of the founders of the SETI@home project, which analyzed data from the world's largest radio telescope using the desktop computers and cell phones of millions of volunteers.
Recorded on March 15, 2017

With Dr. Natalie Batalha (NASA, Kepler Mission Project Scientist)

NASA's Kepler Mission launched in 2009 with the objective of finding "Goldilocks planets" orbiting other stars like our Sun -- those that are not too hot, not too cold, but just right. The space telescope opened our eyes to the many terrestrial-sized planets that populate the galaxy (including several right in our neighborhood,) as well as to exotic worlds unlike anything that exists in the solar system.  Dr. Batalha gives an overview of the science legacy of the Kepler Mission and other key planet discoveries (including some results that were then only a few weeks old).  She also gives a preview of planet-finding missions to come.  

Recorded Nov. 8, 2017

In this episode, Dr. Victoria Kaspi (McGill University) introduces us to a brand-new mystery in the skies -- superfast bursts of radio waves whose source is still unknown.  These energetic bursts come from all over the sky (and all over the universe,) pack a huge amount of energy, and typically last a few thousandths of a second.  Like a detective in the middle of a case, Dr. Kaspi fills us in on the story of how new observations (especially with the CHIME telescope project which she heads) have been revealing tantalizing new aspects of these bursts, without yet giving us a solution to their ultimate cause.  She shares both the thrills and frustrations of a new phenomenon in science, still in the process of being explored.  Recorded on Oct. 19, 2022.

Victoria Kaspi is the inaugural director of the McGill Space Institute and holds the Lorne Trottier Chair in Astrophysics and Cosmology at McGill University.  She is the winner of the 2021 Shaw Prize in astronomy and the 2022 Albert Einstein World Award in Science.

with Prof. Eliot Quataert (University of California, Berkeley)

In the previous decade, one third of the world's astronomers became involved in a single project --  observing a distant and violent event,  when two "star corpses" called neutron stars collided and exploded.  This represented the first time in the history of astronomy that a cosmic event was observed with both gravity waves (first predicted by Einstein) and light.   We now call this event the birth of "multi-messenger astronomy."  Dr. Quataert gives a non-technical history of how we are now able to find gravity waves, what happens during such a merger, and why we now believe that much of the gold, platinum, uranium and other heavy elements in the universe is assembled in such "star corpse" mergers.  Recorded Jan. 24, 2018.

Speaker: Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

For five years, Curiosity explored Gale Crater, one of the most intriguing locations on Mars -- once the site of an ancient lake.  In this talk, the mission's Project Scientist discussed what the rover was capable of and the many things it discovered on and about  the red planet.  In particular, he fills us in on the evidence that ancient Mars, billions of years ago, was much more like the Earth -- with a thicker atmosphere and flowing water on its surface. (Recorded Feb. 28, 2018)

with Dr, Michael Busch (SETI Institute)
Near-Earth asteroids are a population of small bodies whose orbits around the Sun cross or come near our planet’s orbit.  They turn out to be unusual physical environments: essentially rubble piles. They represent a natural hazard we ignore at our peril, because some of these bodies have the potential to impact Earth.  Dr. Busch reviews the near-Earth asteroid population, programs to track and characterize such asteroids, and current efforts to address the danger of asteroid impacts.

In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto, revealing its surface to our view for the first time. In this program, Drs. Alan Stern and David Grinspoon give us an insider's view of how this complex mission came to be and what it discovered at the edge of our solar system.  Their recent book  (with the same title) tells the full story of the mission, its ground-breaking discoveries at Pluto, and where it's going next.  Here is the story of path-breaking exploration and new science, straight from the source, with insight into what it's like to be part of a  planetary mission that goes to a destination never before visited.  (Recorded May 15, 2018)

Dr. Sandra Faber (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Do Humans Have What it Takes to Thrive in this Universe?

In this thought-provoking talk, cosmologist (and National Medal of Science winner) Dr. Sandra Faber takes a look at our cosmic origins, the future of the Earth as a habitable planet, and what humans need to do to thrive in the long-term future.  She draws some sobering conclusions from the laws of physics and the sustainability of our present-day use of energy and resources.  And she provides some clear guidelines on what we will need to do, as a species, to continue living on Earth for as long as our durable planet can provide an inviting home for us.  (Recorded May 25, 2022)

When light from space enters Earth’s atmosphere, it is distorted and displaced, something our eyes perceive as “twinkling.”  Adaptive optics can remove a great deal of this distortion, essentially restoring much of the detail we’ve been robbed off in our view of the stars and galaxies.  Dr. Max, a world-renowned pioneer in this technique, shows us how modern lasers allow her to do this very precisely.  And she discusses how this technique is giving us sharper views of such cosmic events as the collision of nearby galaxies.

Speaker: Dr. Claire Max (University of California Observatories)
Oct. 3, 2018