jtotheizzoe:

scinerds:

Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey

Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey is an upcoming American documentary television series. It is a follow-up to Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which was presented by Carl Sagan. The new series’ presenter will be Neil deGrasse Tyson.

The executive producers are Seth MacFarlane and Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow. It was originally announced that it would premiere in the 2012–13 United States network television schedule, but a Twitter update from Neil deGrasse Tyson in June 2012 indicates a Spring 2014 release. Episodes will premiere on Fox and also air on National Geographic Channel on the same night.

Development

The original 13-part Cosmos: A Personal Voyage first aired in 1980 on the Public Broadcasting System, and was hosted by Carl Sagan. The show was considered highly significant since its broadcast; Dave Itzkoff of the New York Times described it as “a watershed moment for science-themed television programming”. The show has been watched by at least 400 million people across 60 different countries.

Following Sagan’s death in 1996, his widow Ann Druyan, the co-creator of the original Cosmos series along with Steven Soter, a producer from the series, and astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, sought to create a new version of the series, aimed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible and not just to those interested in the sciences. They had struggled for years with reluctant television networks that failed to see the broad appeal of the show.

Seth MacFarlane had met Druyan through Tyson at an event that connected Hollywood directors with scientists in 2009, and learned of their interest to recreate Cosmos. MacFarlane was influenced by Cosmos as a child, believing that Cosmos served to “[bridge] the gap between the academic community and the general public”. MacFarlane had considered that the reduction of effort for space travel in recent decades to be part of “our culture of lethargy”. MacFarlane, who at the time has several animated shows on the Fox Network, was able to bring Druyan to meet the heads of Fox programming, Peter Rice and Kevin Reilly, and helped to get the greenlighting of the show.

MacFarlane admits that he is “the least essential person in this equation” and the effort is a departure from work he’s done before, but considers this to be “very comfortable territory for [himself] personally”. He and Druyan have become close friends, and Druyan stated that she believed that Sagan and MacFarlane would have been “kindred spirits” with their respective “protean talents”. In June 2012, MacFarlane provided funding to allow about 800 boxes of Sagan’s personal notes and correspondences to be donated to the Library of Congress.

Just a reminder that this is happening. I nearly vibrate with excitement when I think of it. A year in advance is not too early to set your DVR.

Source: Wikipedia

jtotheizzoe: Catalog of Habitable Planets The idea of what makes a planet “habitable” is one of temperature, distance from its parent star, composition, etc. It’s not really one of utility, i.e. “actually being able to go live there”.  The search for exoplanets via NASA’s Kepler project and others has perhaps not discovered life-rich alien worlds (the equipment they use couldn’t do that if they tried), but it has reinforced the idea that there are a TON of planets out there. Planets, like or unlike our own, are very common. The Planetary Habitability Laboratory at Puerto Rico’s Aricebo observatory (the big crater telescope from Contact) put together this catalog of potentially habitable known exoplanets ranked by their “Earth Similarity”. Visit the link for a load more details. As our techniques and equipment advance, this list will surely grow by leaps and bounds. It doesn’t mean that any of them will harbor extraterrestrial life, but it reminds us that while the scientific characteristics of our home might not be uncommon, the ability for one species on Earth to search for others like it surely is something special.
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jtotheizzoe:

Catalog of Habitable Planets

The idea of what makes a planet “habitable” is one of temperature, distance from its parent star, composition, etc. It’s not really one of utility, i.e. “actually being able to go live there”. 

The search for exoplanets via NASA’s Kepler project and others has perhaps not discovered life-rich alien worlds (the equipment they use couldn’t do that if they tried), but it has reinforced the idea that there are a TON of planets out there. Planets, like or unlike our own, are very common.

The Planetary Habitability Laboratory at Puerto Rico’s Aricebo observatory (the big crater telescope from Contact) put together this catalog of potentially habitable known exoplanets ranked by their “Earth Similarity”. Visit the link for a load more details.

As our techniques and equipment advance, this list will surely grow by leaps and bounds. It doesn’t mean that any of them will harbor extraterrestrial life, but it reminds us that while the scientific characteristics of our home might not be uncommon, the ability for one species on Earth to search for others like it surely is something special.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

John Muir (1838-1914) from My First Summer in the Sierra


In philosophical terms, we can say that this signifies ontological dependence. This implies causal and compositional interdependence (and/or interpenentration) on a cosmic, open-system scale, and not confined to one domain or another.

For example, the Earth and the organisms in/on it are obviously dependent on things outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and therefore its composition and properties are also externally-dependent.

And, since nothing we have ever observed could be considered as ontologically independent—relying only on itself to exist—there is no reason to suppose that such a thing does indeed exist.

So, whilst I can imaginemyself as an independent and autonomous agent (physically and metaphysically speaking), or imagine an omnipotent and omniscient anthropomorphic entity hovering in deep space, unaffected by extreme physical conditions, I should expect such ideas to be aggressively challenged should I actually feel compelled to verbalise them.

In other words: connectedness and dependence should be our default lens, not an optional one. Assume explanatory problems are caused by an inability to map this dependence. The agency we ascribe is the agency we craft.

jtotheizzoe:

Observing the Sun Like Never Before

NASA visualization artists have taken video images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and used a beautiful gradient filtering method to bring out details often lost to scientist’s eyes.

Magnetic turbulence, originating deep within our star, causes loops of energized solar material to erupt from the Sun’s surface. But they can be very hard to detect with the bright star behind them. So by processing these images through a gradient filter, the resulting video is both hauntingly beautiful while allowing obscure details of solar storms to be viewed by researchers.

(via io9)

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