The GEMMA Podcast Gemini Observatory

In episode 10 of the GEMMA podcast, GEMMA intern Odysseus Quarles reviews the discovery and naming of Pōniuāʻena, the second-most-distant quasar discovered to date, and the oldest known billion-solar-mass quasar in the universe.

Special thanks to the ʻImiloa Astronomy Center, for allowing us to use audio from their interviews with Jason Chu, Kaʻiu Kimura, Larry Kimura, and John O’Meara, and for leading the A Hua He Inoa program to unite cultural leaders, astronomers and students to share traditional knowledge with modern astronomical research. 

In episode 9 of the GEMMA podcast, GEMMA intern Odysseus Quarles interviews Michael Wong, a planetary scientist at the University of California Berkeley. Wong is the PI for the recent Jupiter observations done at Gemini North in conjunction with the Hubble Space telescope and the Juno probe. In this episode, we discuss solar system astronomy in a multi-messenger context, and how Gemini’s capabilities were uniquely suited to the task. We then discuss some of the interesting results from Wong’s observations, including “holes” in the Great Red Spot, and lightning source regions.

Related Links:

Press Release and Images

Be sure to keep an eye on our Youtube page as well, where we’ll have Michael Wong back again for Live from NOIRLab@Gemini on May 27th!

In episode 8 of the GEMMA podcast, GEMMA intern Odysseus Quarles introduces Brian Day’s Journey Through the Universe talk on the past, present, and future of NASA’s Moon and Mars exploration programs. Brian Day is the Lead for Citizen Science and Community Development at NASA’s Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI). His talk, presented as part of Gemini Observatory’s Journey Through the Universe program, covers the history of NASA’s Lunar and Martian exploration programs, and the challenges and discoveries that await us in the next wave of human exploration in our solar system.

In episode 7 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Data Process Developer Chris Simpson. Simpson works in the Science Users Support department at Gemini Observatory of NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory where he helps write Gemini’s new data reduction software package DRAGONS (Data Reduction for Astronomy from Gemini Observatory North and South). They discuss the advantage of DRAGONS in the coming age of time-domain astronomy as well as its benefits from the POV of an astronomer.

In episode 6 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Joshua Chamot, Public Affairs Specialist for the National Science Foundation. They examine how the media landscape for space science has changed from the dot-com boom in the early 2000s to the decline of journalists with a science background around 2008. They also discuss the niche of passionate supporters astronomy and space sciences have captured compared to other sciences, how multi-messenger astronomy plays into the NSF’s Big 10 Ideas, and the success of the November 2019 GEMMA Summit.

In episode 5 of the GEMMA Podcast, GEMMA intern Chance Spencer interviews Ethan Siegel, a theoretical astrophysicist and author for the blog “Starts With A Bang” which is featured in Forbes and Medium. Starting their conversation by unravelling Olbers' Paradox, they discuss the four predictions the Big Bang model implies, Einstein's "biggest blunder", how gravitational waves can let humanity peer past the cosmic microwave background, and how the matter that we interact with everyday is only 4.9% of what makes up the universe.