The Stars Overhead

I love stargazing. Using telescopes and binocs to look at the stars is great, but something about looking at the stars at night with your own eyes is just magical. It reconnects us with ancient people, who knew the heavens above so very well, even if we have more knowledge now about what those stars really are.

As a communicator of science, I've been slowly building up my set of tools to use to share science in various ways. One things I've been wanting to do for a long time, but just haven't accomplished is producing videos of my field work, videos about science, and videos about the awe and wonder I feel in the presence of thinking about the universe and that I know many others likely share as well. So I've decided to start doing it! I'm going to be producing videos (hopefully one each week or two) to share these things.

The first one to get started with is a video about the stars you can see overhead at night. I'm still finding my voice and my style, but, if you have a moment, give it a watch and, please, let me know what you think. 

The ISS Symphony

The ISS, photographed by crew members of STS-119 in 2009

The international space station (ISS) is one of the greatest endeavors of modern human engineering. This 450,000 kg artificial habitable satellite is argued to be the most expensive single item ever built. It has served as home to a number of astronauts, who've used the station to perform a staggering amount of experiments in the realms of biology and chemistry, physics and materials science, and space physiology. 

Moreover, the ISS is our home-away-from-home for the time being. Until we send humans back to the moon, on to near Earth asteroids, and even onward to Venus and Mars, the ISS will serve as our furthest perch, a vantage point from which we can look back at our world and onward to the cosmos beyond. The cameras onboard the ISS are constantly filming the planet below. 

Sometimes, I like to play the livestream from the ISS while doing my work. It reminds me that even though in my tiny little corner of this world I am going about my day and focusing on my tasks at hand there is a global community around me who are all doing their own things as well. We are all working and struggling, thinking and feeling, and living as individuals, yet we are all connected through our biosphere and through our common heritage on this little rock in space.

If you feel like you could use a little perspective, then check out the ISS Symphony, a video of timelapse footage edited by Dmitry Pisanko and set to music by Ludovico Einaudi. In the video you can watch lightning, aurorae, and the lights from modern cities as they light up the globe. You can see the myriad local stars, still so distant from us in the cosmic ocean. You can see various parts of the space station as they are viewed with the globe as their backdrop. If, like me, you are inspired by our work on the ISS and the scientific and cultural relevance of this feat of modern engineering, then you most certainly will enjoy this ISS Symphony:

Science is a way of thinking: The Inspiration Journey's video of Carl Sagan's last interview

The late scientist Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

I came across a video today produced by The Inspiration Journey, which sets inspirational music and video to a portion of the audio from Carl Sagan's last interview with Charlie Rose in 1996, the year of Sagan's death. This interview featured some of Sagan's most poignant as well as inspirational words about the way that science has functioned in human history and about the current issues we face in improving science literacy and understanding. 

During this interview, Sagan said, "Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking." Indeed. We've developed a continually evolving understanding of our place in the cosmos through our scientific pursuits. Science is a way of thinking that has helped us to question our predispositions about ourselves and our universe. There's a special magic to science, not a magic of the supernatural kind, but rather of the awe inspiring kind. We've found that we can revel in the grandeur of the universe by better knowing the universe. 

If you take stake in the idea of a better future for everyone, then I highly recommend the following video. Turn the lights down and the volume up, and enjoy: