Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

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Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

56 episodes

1 month ago

Dr. Alfonso Davila (NASA Ames Research Center) Nov. 24, 2025 In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a groundbreaking discovery—it found massive plumes of ice and gas erupting from the south pole of Enceladus, a small but geologically-active moon of Saturn. These plumes are now believed to originate from a subsurface ocean of liquid water beneath the moon’s icy crust, with conditions compatible with life, as we know it. The talk focuses on our current understanding of Enceladus' plume and sub...

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Dr. Alfonso Davila (NASA Ames Research Center) Nov. 24, 2025 In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a groundbreaking discovery—it found massive plumes of ice and gas erupting from the south pole of Enceladus, a small but geologically-active moon of Saturn. These plumes are now believed to originate from a subsurface ocean of liquid water beneath the moon’s icy crust, with conditions compatible with life, as we know it. The talk focuses on our current understanding of Enceladus' plume and sub...

Show more...

Episodes (20/56)

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Search for Life on Saturn’s Intriguing Moon Enceladus

Dr. Alfonso Davila (NASA Ames Research Center) Nov. 24, 2025 In 2005, NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a groundbreaking discovery—it found massive plumes of ice and gas erupting from the south pole of Enceladus, a small but geologically-active moon of Saturn. These plumes are now believed to originate from a subsurface ocean of liquid water beneath the moon’s icy crust, with conditions compatible with life, as we know it. The talk focuses on our current understanding of Enceladus' plume and sub...

1 month ago

1 hour 14 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Amazing Vera Rubin Observatory and Its Movie of the Sky

A Nontechnical talk by Dr. Steven Kahn (University of California, Berkeley) Oct. 8, 2025 The amazing Vera Rubin Observatory is a unique astronomy facility just built in Chile, with the largest digital camera in the world, designed to provide a time-lapse “movie” of the entire sky from the Earth’s southern hemisphere. Over its planned ten years of operation, the Rubin Observatory will obtain nearly 1,000 images of every part of that sky. By comparing the various images, we will be ...

2 months ago

1 hour 26 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Science at the Edge of the Solar System

A Talk by Dr. Oliver White (SETI Institute) May 28, 2025 Ten years ago, the New Horizons spacecraft flew by the Pluto system and revealed an unexpectedly diverse range of landscapes on that dwarf planet and its largest moon Charon -- implying much more complex geological histories for these distant worlds than anyone expected. Dr. White leads a vivid tour of their often bizarre terrains, some of which are still evolving, and explains what processes scientists think molded them into their pres...

7 months ago

1 hour 23 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

New Worlds: Analyzing the Atmospheres of Exoplanets with the James Webb Space Telescope

Non-technical Talk by Prof. Jonathan Fortney (U. of California, Santa Cruz) Apr. 9, 2025 Over 6000 planets have now been found around other stars, but we only have information about what their atmospheres are like for a few dozen. NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which features a 20-foot mirror in space, is currently being used to understand planetary atmospheres. Prof. Fortney explains how we can look for atmospheres around rocky planets the size of the E...

8 months ago

1 hour 22 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Copernicus 4.0: How the Views of Earth's Importance and the Search for Life are Changing

Mar. 5, 2025 Dr. Simon Steel (SETI Institute) Dr. Steel discusses the Copernican revolution and how it changed humanity's view of its place in the universe. He then talked about other "Copernican" discoveries that displaced us from a central perch, including the revision of our place in the Galaxy, the discovery of other galaxies, and now our finding a remarkable number of planets (including Earth-like planets) orbiting other stars. He explains how such discoveries give cont...

9 months ago

1 hour 13 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Human-Robotic Exploration from the Moon to Mars

Jan. 29, 2025 Dr. Darlene Lim (NASA Ames Research Center) NASA's Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) is a planned mission to go to the South Pole of the Moon and get a close-up view of the locations that can sustain water ice – ice that could eventually be harvested to support human exploration on the Moon, on Mars — and beyond. Dr. Lim discusses how, for the first time in NASA’s history, the science team would be fully integrated into the mission operations team and will...

11 months ago

1 hour 12 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Observing with the James Webb Space Telescope: Glimpsing the First Stars

Nov. 13, 2024Dr. Dan Coe (Space Telescope Science Institute)The Webb Telescope was designed to look back in time, to study the first generation of stars, and reveal our cosmic origins. Now in its second year of operation, JWST has already brought us tantalizingly close to our dream of seeing those first stars. Dr. Coe takes us on a tour of some of the latest results from the telescope, and tells us about his and others' observations of the most distant stars and galaxies astronomers hav...

1 year ago

1 hour 4 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Profound and Staggering: The Impact on Religion of the Discovery of Life around Other Stars

Recorded Oct. 9, 2024Astronomers have now discovered thousands of planets in orbit around other stars. Dr. Weintraub discusses those discoveries, and predicts the progress astronomers are likely to make in their more detailed studies of these planets over the next fifty years. Then he considers the consequences of those potential discoveries for Roman Catholicism, Mainline Protestantism, Christian Creationism, Seventh Day Adventism, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism -- for all of which the discove...

1 year ago

1 hour 20 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Copernicus Complex: Are We Special in the Cosmos

With Prof. Caleb Scharf (Columbia University)Is humanity on Earth special or unexceptional? Extraordinary discoveries in astronomy and biology have revealed a universe filled with endlessly diverse planetary systems, and a picture of life as a phenomenon intimately linked with the most fundamental aspects of physics. But just where these discoveries will lead us is not yet clear. We may need to find a way to see past the mediocre status that Copernicus assigned to us 500 years ago...

1 year ago

1 hour 18 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Black Widow Pulsars: The Vengeful Corpses of Stars

With Dr. Roger Romani (Stanford University):NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has revealed a violent high-energy universe full of stellar explosions, black hole jets, and pulsing stars. These cosmic objects are often faint when observed with visible light, but glow bright with gamma rays. Dr. Romani describes the quest to discover the true nature of the most puzzling of these gamma-ray sources. Several turn out to be a kind of bizarre star corpse called a 'black widow'...

1 year ago

1 hour 1 minute

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Europa Clipper: Exploring Jupiter's Ocean World

Presenter is the Project Scientist, Dr. Robert Pappalardo (JPL)May 22, 2024Jupiter's moon Europa may be a habitable world, containing the “ingredients” necessary for life within its ocean. Data from NASA’s earlier Galileo mission suggest that a global, salty ocean exists beneath the icy surface. Tides have broken that floating ice shell to create impressive ridges, bands, and chaotic terrains. The Europa Clipper mission will explore Europa with a suite of instruments, through multiple close f...

1 year ago

1 hour 22 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Allure of the Multiverse (with Dr. Paul Halpern)

Apr. 17, 2024In this talk, physicist and popular author Paul Halpern (St. Joseph's College) examines the history of the concept of a multiverse in science, and discusses the ideas by Einstein and other noted physicists that have led scientist today to take the notion of multiple universes seriously. He also contrasts the scientific view of a multiverse to the picture we get in popular culture (think Marvel movies) and notes how significantly the two differ. Dr. Halpern is the auth...

1 year ago

1 hour 16 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Black Hole Wars: My Battle with Stephen Hawking

With Dr. Leonard Susskind (Stanford University)Black holes, the collapsed remnants of the largest stars, provide a remarkable laboratory where the frontier concepts of our understanding of nature are tested at their extreme limits. For more than two decades, Professor Susskind and a Dutch colleague had a running battle with Stephen Hawking about the implications of black hole theory for our understanding of reality — a battle that he has described in his well-reviewed book The Black Hole Wars...

1 year ago

1 hour 34 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Black Holes and the Technology to Find Them

A Non-technical Talk by Dr. Jessica Lu (University of California, Berkeley) on March 13, 2024The population of black holes, objects left over from dead stars, is almost entirely unexplored. Only about two dozen black holes are confidently known in our Galaxy. As a result, some of the most basic properties of black holes remain unknown, including the true number of black holes in the Galaxy, their masses and sizes, and how the black holes were formed. Dr. Lu discusses how she and o...

1 year ago

1 hour 2 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Exploring the Gravitational Wave Universe

Speaker: Dr. Brian Lantz (Stanford University)Feb. 7, 2024Measuring 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 ...

1 year ago

1 hour 9 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Water Above, Water Below: The Many Roles of Water in Making Planets Habitable

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 scal...

2 years ago

1 hour 14 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

The Peril and Profit of Near-Earth Objects

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

2 years ago

1 hour 10 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

SPECIAL: An Interview with Frank Drake: The Founder of SETI Science (conducted by Andrew Fraknoi)

June 2012Frank 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 Institut...

2 years ago

44 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

Ashes to Ashes, Earth to Earth, Dust to Dust: The Birth and Death of Worlds

with Dr. Eugene Chiang (University of California, Berkeley)June 21, 2023We 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.

2 years ago

1 hour 5 minutes

Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures

An Eclipse Double-Header: Two North American Eclipses of the Sun in 2023 & 2024 (with Andrew Fraknoi)

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 eclip...

2 years ago

1 hour 2 minutes