Topic: Pamela Gay
A Brief History of Community Science, Part 2

A Brief History of Community Science, Part 2

by | Jul 16, 2025 |

The landing page for a new community science platform. Join us at mappers.psi.edu! Back in the spring of 1999, while one part of the internet focused in on still unpatched Y2K bugs, another, often overlapping part of the internet focused in on something much more fun - the search for extraterrestrial life. The BOINC project at U Cal Berkeley had released a new screensaver designed to use computers that would otherwise be sleeping to process radio astronomy data for the kinds of patterns that could indicate alien life. I have to admit, my computer was deeply engaged in processing my...

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Invasion of the Microscopic Black Holes

Invasion of the Microscopic Black Holes

by | Oct 15, 2024 |

Image credit: Tech Explorist Every once in a while, a story comes along that just makes me giggle, and also forces me to fix some misinformation living in my brain. Consider the microscopic black hole. In my brain, these diminutive creations of the early universe...

When Asteroids (Don’t) Attack

When Asteroids (Don’t) Attack

by | Sep 18, 2024 |

Artist's concept of the Hera mission gliding past Didymos to Dimorphos. Image credit: ESA For a hot second back in 2004, it looked like there was a couple percent chance the asteroid 99942 Apophis just might crash into the planet Earth on April 13, 2029. And even if...

VIPER May Live to Rove Another Day

VIPER May Live to Rove Another Day

by | Sep 17, 2024 |

A computer generated concept image of the VIPER rover Despite what the contents of this and recent episodes might imply, my passion is for science not for spacecraft. The thing is, sometimes spacecraft are needed to do the science. And lately, I and many others have...

The Cost of Space Flight on the Planet

The Cost of Space Flight on the Planet

by | Sep 17, 2024 |

As a nerdy member of GenX, I can state with pride and shame that I watched Buck Rogers in the early 80s and was constantly fascinated by all the weird ways their writers found for fictional 24th century scientists to misunderstand the relics from the 20th century....

Dino Prints Match Continents

Dino Prints Match Continents

by | Sep 16, 2024 |

One of the reasons we study the Moon is to help us understand the history of our own planet Earth. The shifting continents and weather patterns of Earth join forces to erase our world’s history. Occasionally, however, our planet reveals its past through the rocks...

Closer Look: Mars is the Future

Closer Look: Mars is the Future

by | Sep 6, 2024 | ,

Since Mars Spirit and Opportunity first set down on Mars in 2004, there has been a continuous robotic presence on the Red Planet. The Phoenix and Insight Landers have answered specific questions about Mars composition and interior, while a small herd of rovers have...

A Star’s Death in Three Acts

A Star’s Death in Three Acts

by | Sep 4, 2024 |

While monitoring the sky with optical systems, we’ve found some really weird stuff. Back in 2018, the All Sky Automated Survey for Super Novae discovered a brightening galaxy. Follow -up observations in the X-Ray found the kinds of high energy light that signals a...