24 Hours of Astronomy
Hey all! All relativistic dynamics and no play makes Einstein something something, so I’m glad to be able to write! Because Facebook makes it so very easy to post things, I’ve been posting things there just about every day. It’s hard to imagine that my time is measured in mouse “clicks” where I have time for one, but not too many. 
So be sure to head over there and become my friend. Also, I’ve been trying to join the Twitter Borg experiment (as seen on the right), that will soon see all of us naming our kids’ with names beginning with @.
Today is my second day of the 365 Days of Astronomy project, leaving only 363 Days for the rest of humanity. Sorry about that. This time, I decided to do something different for an astronomy podcast. I learned a long time ago that learning and appreciating the Universe is not proportional to the amount of words one uses – some would say it’s actually inversely proportional! In the planetarium world, I would use visuals and audio to do the speaking, which actually communicates the meaning of a concept or idea to your intellect as much as spoken facts and figures. But then the music, the sound, and visuals all combine in a sort of spiritual alchemy to speak to an entirely different part of you that you didn’t even know was listening.
So today, with the kind permission of the fantastic musician Cardamar, we take a auditory journey across the light years to the amazing new world of extrasolar planet discovery. “Exoplanet Remix” features the voices of Drs. Geoff Marcy, Jim Fanson, Pieter Deroo, Pin Chen, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mark Clampin, Jo Pitesky, Mark Swain, Hook, Frankenstein, Pepper, NASA, ESO, and Mary Estacion.
You can listen with the player below, or click over to the project page itself.
Headphones recommended! I hope you enjoy it!
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February 11th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Amazing remix! Spiritual, yes. Relaxing and inspiring as well. Very nice production Davin!
February 11th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Thanks Tiare! I think we really take for granted the discovery of other worlds – we seem to be so blaze’ when its announced that an entire new planet has been uncovered. Imagine you woke up one morning, and we discovered a whole new continetnt had been discovered. We’d all go crazy asking questions about what it was like, if there was life, and we’d be giddy at the idea of exploring it. Now take that, only an entire planet, and multiply that by 339 – the number of new planets we’ve discovered!
Its one topic that I will discuss in my next podcast, March 1, when I talk about the upcoming Kepler mission that is scheduled to launch in early March.
February 11th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Really nice. Could you please make other podcasts like this one? The rest of humanity would thank you. Cheers
February 11th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
wonderful wonderful wonderful. thank you.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Thanks Samuel – relly appreciate it. Well, you can listen to my next podcast on March 1st, but unfortunately, I have to speak in it.
But I’ll try and make it as interesting as possible talking about the upcoming Kepler mission to search for Extrasolar planets. Less than a month till Launch!!
February 18th, 2009 at 12:54 am
Very nice, Davin. Sort of reminded me of a really cool clip that I found on youtube some time back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sVGXFxJbj8
Pretty trippy.