Sun Series: Bonus: Dispatches from the Path of Totality | About the Episode

On April 8, 2024, North America experienced its last total solar eclipse until the 2040s. As the Moon’s shadow fell across the U.S., NASA sent Curious Universe producers out into the field across the path of totality to talk to space nerds and eclipse scientists. In this special bonus episode of our Sun Series, we’ll relive the special day together.

Introducing NASA’s Curious Universe         

Get curious with NASA. As an official NASA podcast, Curious Universe brings you mind-blowing science and space adventures you won’t find anywhere else. Explore the cosmos alongside astronauts, scientists, engineers, and other top NASA experts who are achieving remarkable feats in science, space exploration, and aeronautics. Learn something new about the wild and wonderful universe we share. All you need to get started is a little curiosity. 

NASA’s Curious Universe is an official NASA podcast hosted by Padi Boyd and Jacob Pinter 

Discover more ad-free, original NASA shows at nasa.gov/podcasts 

Find the full NASA’s Curious Universe catalog at nasa.gov/curiousuniverse

Sun Series: Bonus: Dispatches from the Path of Totality

In this episode, Dr. Chelle Gentemann, Open Science Program Scientist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer, explains NASA’s initiative to make science more collaborative, accessible, and inclusive. Known as Transform to Open Science, or TOPS, the program encourages increased access to research and data.

Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Episode 129: Accelerating Discoveries with Open Science

For the first time, NASA released a sonification simultaneously with news results associated with two of its telescopes, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The data cover the region near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, is barely seen in the lower right-hand of the visual image that contains X-ray data from IXPE (red-orange) and Chandra (purple). In the sonification of these data, the cursor begins at Sagittarius A* and moves out as a growing circle toward the center of the image. As it encounters IXPE data, the volume of the notes changes according to the brightness of the X-rays. The brighter the Chandra data, the higher the musical pitch and vice versa. When the cursor travels over a large patch of X-rays both from Chandra and IXPE in the center of the image, a rushing sound is heard. This region is where scientists find a “light echo,” a high-energy relic left behind from an eruption from Sagittarius A* about 200 years ago.

Sagittarius A* Light Echo Sonification

One of the surprising features of black holes is that although light (such as radio, visible, and X-rays) cannot escape from them, surrounding material can produce intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation. As they travel outward, these blasts of light can bounce off clouds of gas and dust in space, similar to how light beams from a car’s headlight will scatter off fog.
A new sonification turns these “light echoes” from the black hole called V404 Cygni into sound. Located about 7,800 light-years from Earth, V404 Cygni is a system that contains a black hole, with a mass between five and 10 times the Sun’s, that is pulling material from a companion star in orbit around it. The material is funneled into a disk that encircles the stellar-mass black hole.
This material periodically generates bursts of radiation, including X-rays. As the X-rays travel outward they encounter clouds of gas and dust in between V404 Cygni and Earth and are scattered at various angles. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have imaged the X-ray light echoes around V404 Cygni. Because astronomers know exactly how fast light travels and have determined an accurate distance to this system, they can calculate when these eruptions occurred. This data, plus other information, helps astronomers learn more about the dust clouds, including their composition and distances.

V404 Cygni Sonification

This image shows the region around the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), in infrared (orange and purple) and X-ray light (blue). The image is scanned from left to right and the data are transformed into sound. The brightness of the objects is represented by the volume, while the vertical positions of the sources in the image are mapped to musical pitches. X-rays are played with a soft synthesizer and the infrared data are heard as bass notes and plucked sounds. The brightest region in the middle of the image (and hence the loudest) is where Sgr A* the black hole, resides. It is within this area that the Event Horizon Telescope was able to peer to obtain the first image of Sgr A* itself.

Sagittarius A* Sonification

https://www.nasa.gov/podcasts/houston-we-have-a-podcast/small-payloads-big-science/

Houston We Have a Podcast: Small Payloads, Big Science

On episode 336, three experts within the Human Physiology, Performance, Protection and Operations Laboratory (H-3PO) at NASA, explain the ins and outs of this integrated laboratory designed to support human spaceflight.

Houston We Have a Podcast: H-3PO

On episode 337, the CHAPEA crew checks in on their tenth month in a Mars simulated habitat, and a NASA scientist explains her role studying crew habitat design and how it supports behavioral health, team cohesion, and performance.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Mars Audio Log #10

In this episode, Teddy Tzanetos, project manager for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, tells us about what we’re still learning from Ingenuity’s final flight and how risk management can be used for opportunities.

Small Steps, Giant Leaps: Episode 130: Ingenuity’s Final Flight: Lessons Learned

On episode 338, experts from NASA’s Stennis Space Center discuss the facilities that support RS-25 engine testing for the Space Launch System and future Artemis missions.

Houston We Have a Podcast: Certifying Artemis Rocket Engines

Recycle Michael interviews Green Mary on Earth Day.

Mary Munat "Green Mary" tells her story about getting inspired to make events Zero Waste. 

Mary Munat entered the waste diversion world from her position as Human Resources Manager with The Health and Harmony Festival in Sonoma County in 2001.  There, working in the role of volunteer coordinator, she heard environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill speaking on the urgency of all event-goers to heed their environmental impact out at public events. Green light bulbs went off.
All systems aligned internally and socially to give birth to a local industry.  Within three years, before “greening” was even a verb, Green Mary moved from one local festival to greening a dozen, to over 200 event-related dates in 2015. She helped shift the focus from recycling and throw away items to highly compostable food service wares, ensuring that everything that can be composted or re-used is diverted from the landfill. 

Find her at
www.greenmary.com

Links mentioned:
https://dailyacts.org/ 
https://huffman.house.gov

Podcast Engineered by Crystal Awareness

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