Looking Up

Still buzzing with excitement from the Artemis II launch, Dean Regas waxes poetic about that special view of our home planet that only astronauts get to see. A chat with NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson is the closest experience to the real thing.

What is a potentially hazardous asteroid like? Up close and personal? Very few space missions have visited asteroids and fewer still have touched an asteroid and brought some of it back to Earth. Dean chats with NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission's image processing lead scientist, Dr. Daniella Mendoza DellaGiustina, to learn more. Let’s go to the asteroid Bennu!

How do you feel about the universe? Is it scary, you know with how large it is? How far way everything is? Is it intimidating when astronomers talk about time in millions and billions of years? Okay, on the surface it’s intimidating. But there are lots of people out there who have made it their mission, sometimes dedicating years to volunteering, and a few well-paying careers, just to bring the universe down to Earth. Dean Regas chats with Kat Troche, project coordinator for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, to learn more.

By some counts as much as 96% of everything in the universe comes from dark matter and dark energy. And, up to now, both are completely invisible. Few in the field question this theory, but could there be alternatives? Dean chats with Professor Stacy McGaugh from the Department of Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University to learn more.

What happens when 3000 astronomers gather in one place? The annual American Astronomical Society meeting puts this question to the test. In this episode, Dean Regas shares what makes a gathering like this so special, reflecting on conversations he had with like-minded astronomers at his first AAS meeting. Special thanks this episode to Diana Hannikainen, Christina Williams, Kevin Legore, Aaron Yung, Allyn Smith and Alex Thomas.

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Find Us Online: Twitter: @lookinguppod @deanregas, Instagram: @917wvxu @deanregas, Tiktok: @cincinnatipublicradio @astronomerdean, Episode transcript: www.wvxu.org/podcast/looking-up More from Dean: www.astrodean.com

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