Visualizing Epsilon Aurigae with Ryan Wyatt

By Michael on October 7, 2010 at 11:31 am | In Audio Podcasts | No Comments

We got skipped last month but we are back on The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast this month with another exciting installment! This time we are interviewing the über cool Ryan Wyatt, who is a science visualizer and director of the planetarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. We have had Ryan on the show before. Perhaps some studious young person can add a link to that show in the comments.

As a side note, I did and do actually know Ryan’s last name! On the podcast I had a moment of forgetfulness or self-doubt and he confusedly fills in his last name for me in the introduction.

BTW, here is the video we are discussing with Ryan.

Also, we have a very long and very entertaining extended version of this podcast that I am working frantically to edit and upload. Please subscribe to the feed or stop back again soon. You can also follows us on Twitter at @slackastro and/or search for our Facebook page. We are slackers at updating all of the above but at least we are upfront about it.

That is all for now. Get thee to 365 and check out today’s podcast or listen now below.

 

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Pope’s Astronomer Would Baptize Aliens

By Ben on October 3, 2010 at 5:00 am | In Blog Posts | 1 Comment

I know it reads like a National enquirer story but…

I’ve met Br Guy Consolmagno.

http://freemars.org/mnfan/MarsSociety/2008/Mars-Soc-Conf-2008/2008-08-16-149.jpg

He’s ok.

–Ben

Pope’s Astronomer Would Baptize Aliens

Published September 21, 2010 | FoxNews.com

One of the pope’s astronomers would happily baptize an alien if asked — “no matter how many tentacles it has.”

Guy Consolmagno, a trained astronomer and planetary scientist at the Vatican’s observatory, discussed a slew of topics at the British Science Festival in Birmingham last weekend, noting that the Vatican was more up to date with the latest scientific developments than most realized.

“You’d be surprised,” he told the Guardian. An avid science-fiction reader, Consolmagno reproached the historical treatment of Galileo, the man who discovered that the Earth indeed travels around the sun.

He even complimented Stephen Hawking — despite Hawking’s recent comments asserting that physics effectively replaced the need for God. Consolmagno called Hawking a “brilliant physicist.”…

…Though he concedes the odds of finding and communicating with other intelligent life is essentially zero, Consolmagno would welcome the event. “Any entity — no matter how many tentacles it has — has a soul,” he said. Asked whether or not he’d baptize an alien, Consolmagno replied: “Only if they asked.”…

More at:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/21/popes-astronomer-baptize-aliens/