Receding Horizons

By: South Texas Astronomical Society
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  • Summary

  • Welcome to Receding Horizons, a podcast for exploring topics in astronomy and space science. Since antiquity, humans have gazed at the night sky, attempting to decipher its mysteries, and find our place within it. As astronomer Edwin Hubble once remarked, the history of astronomy is a history of receding horizons. Our podcast will attempt to answer some of the biggest questions from the oldest of sciences. The mission of this podcast is to explore topics of astronomy and space exploration, and share them with the community of Brownsville, Texas. Our valley is entering into the next phase of human space exploration and participating in the era of multi-messenger astronomy. We are providing a forum of discussion among people of all ages and expertise to bring awareness about our role in this next exciting era.
    South Texas Astronomical Society
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Astronomy Natural History Physics
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Episodes
  • Episode 4 - "Pushing the Boundaries of Human Spaceflight"

    Episode 4 - "Pushing the Boundaries of Human Spaceflight"
    Apr 7 2021
    Episode Notes

    On today's episode we have Emmanuel Zamora, or Alex, as his friends call him. Alex is currently an electrical engineer working at NASA's Johnson Space Center. He was born and raised in the great city of Brownsville, Texas, graduated from Hanna High School, and received a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at San Antonio. His experience as an electrical engineer includes an internship at the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, a job at CPS Energy, and then landing an opportunity as a sub-contractor for NASA on the International Space Station program, where he provided engineering support for the space station's electrical power system, or EPS. More specifically, for the Spartan Controller at Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Alex recently stepped into his new role as a NASA civil servant in January of this year 2021, where he oversees and implements policies over numerous programs. His long-term goal is to become a flight director.

    Recorded on 2 April 2021.

    00:00:00 - Introduction

    00:01:14 - Space travel

    00:04:33 - Interstellar

    00:09:06 - Star Wars and movie technology

    00:14:15 - NASA film restoration

    00:17:28 - Excerpt from Scott Kelly's "Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery"

    00:25:48 - Emmanuel Alex Zamora

    00:28:52 - The Star Wars Expanded Universe

    00:32:09 - Path to NASA

    00:45:30 - PHOENIX, SPARTAN Flight Controller, ISS ATCS/EPS

    00:59:19 - Spacesuits and EVA

    01:05:21 - Building 9

    01:08:28 - Astronaut safety and daily lives

    01:13:11 - ISS electrical power system and solar arrays

    01:19:10 - Yeet

    01:21:30 - Orbital speed and microgravity

    01:28:04 - Spotting the ISS

    01:31:25 - Expeditions into space

    01:36:15 - SpaceX

    01:43:56 - Exploration of the unknown

    01:50:59 - A one-way ticket to Mars?

    01:56:16 - Mission control and Gene Kranz

    01:59:11 - Tungsten Flight

    02:01:48 - Meeting astronauts

    02:07:07 - Artemis, Orion, and Gateway

    02:15:57 - Space station occultations and observing

    02:21:56 - Imaging technology

    02:27:41 - Martian pyramids and extremophiles

    02:37:33 - Rocket launches

    02:41:40 - Future plans

    02:47:14 - Outro
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    2 hrs and 48 mins
  • Episode 3 - "Roughing It as an Astronomer"

    Episode 3 - "Roughing It as an Astronomer"
    Mar 15 2021
    Episode Notes

    Our guest this episode is our collaborator, colleague, and friend, Moises Castillo. A Brownsville and Los Fresnos native, Moises attended university and earned a bachelor of science in physics from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, during which he also worked as lab manager in the Physics Department. Moises earned a masters of science in physics from UTRGV in 2019. He's been the assistant director of the Cristina Torres Memorial Observatory, where he observed and studied eclipsing binary star systems, as well as a researcher for the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy at UTRGV working under Mario Diaz. Currently he's stepping into his role as the Event Coordinator for the Space and Science Team of the South Texas Astronomical Society. He's a curious explorer of the world, a talented engineer and astronomer, the authoritative MC voice, and a great travel partner and friend.

    Recorded on 12 March 2021.

    00:00:00 - Introduction

    00:01:14 - Mate

    00:12:42 - Excerpt from Sean Carroll's "The Big Picture"

    00:15:52 - Moises Castillo

    00:33:33 - Like a swimming duck

    00:42:02 - Moises Castillo

    00:46:00 - Nompuewenu

    00:56:37 - Farming telescopes

    01:09:01 - A new way of teaching astronomy

    01:21:23 - CTMO

    01:32:30 - Spectrographs and lasers

    01:46:30 - Greek mythology

    01:48:42 - Eclipsing binary light curves

    01:54:04 - Sharing an observatory

    01:59:18 - Astronomical protocols and platforms

    02:13:37 - Can stars change colors?

    02:31:57 - What is space?

    02:49:57 - Cool space facts

    02:54:20 - Wrapping it up with Texas

    02:56:32 - Outro

    Related material:

    Mate, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(drink)

    S. Carroll, "The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself", Dutton (2016), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26150770-the-big-picture

    M. Castillo, "Pipeline for Variable Star Detection and Eclipsing Binary Characterization", Master Thesis, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (2019)

    Southmost Library Observatory, https://starsocietyrgv.org/projects/southmostobservatory/

    Burke-Gaffney Observatory, http://www.ap.smu.ca/pr/bgo

    Raspberry Pi, https://www.raspberrypi.org/

    KStars, INDI, and Ekos, https://www.indilib.org/

    The AStronomy Common Object Model (ASCOM), https://ascom-standards.org/

    J. Bell, "The Interstellar Age: Inside the Forty-Year Voyager Mission", Dutton (2015), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22571516-the-interstellar-age
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    2 hrs and 58 mins
  • Episode 2 - "Gravitational Waves and the Giant Shazam"

    Episode 2 - "Gravitational Waves and the Giant Shazam"
    Mar 1 2021
    Episode Notes This is Receding Horizons, Episode 2, where we talk about the exciting era of gravitational wave observations and multi-messenger astronomy. Brina Martinez is an undergraduate studying physics and computer science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She is currently a research assistant at the Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy and in the Time Domain Astronomy Group operating the Cristina Torres Memorial Observatory, both under the mentorship of Dr. Mario Díaz. Brina is a published scientist. Her research focuses on characterizing noise sources intrinsic to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO. She has participated in a research experience for undergraduates at Louisiana State University under Dr. Guillermo Valdes and Dr. Gabriela González, and was a LIGO undergraduate fellow at Caltech under Dr. Derek Davis. Brina is a board member and resident astrophysicist at the South Texas Astronomical Society, as well as a board member and secretary at the Brownsville Chapter of the Society of Physics Students. She was the recipient of several awards including a scholarship from the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science, and a Victor M. Blanco Fellowship from the LIGO Lab and National Society of Hispanic Physicists. She is a gifted public speaker, and I've had the privilege to work with her (and make a lot of memories) during my time in Brownsville. Recorded on 26 February 2021. 00:00:00​ - Introduction 00:01:14​ - Excerpt from "Black Hole Blues" 00:02:48​ - Brina Martinez 00:15:53​ - LIGO 00:32:41​ - Gravitational wave events 00:44:06​ - Lacking belief and scientific leakage 00:52:37​ - Center for Gravitational Wave Astronomy 01:02:35​ - Multi-messenger observations 01:13:27​ - Scientific discovery 01:20:43​ - Daily life at Livingston 01:24:10​ - Analyzing thunderstorm noise 01:29:15​ - Black holes 01:32:49​ - Primordial gravitational waves 01:35:22​ - Unification 01:38:02​ - Singularities and horizons 01:45:03​ - Distorting spacetime 02:00:20​ - LISA 02:11:40​ - Future plans 02:14:38​ - Outro Related material: J. Levin, "Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space", Bodley Head (2016), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27430326-black-hole-blues-and-other-songs-from-outer-space Gravitational Waves Summer School, L’École de Physique des Houches (2018), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo9ufcrEqwWG7TrsxBN5f4L5eX_ZxEhka P. R. Saulson, "Fundamentals of Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detectors", World Scientific (1994), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11764374-fundamentals-of-interferometric-gravitational-wave-detectors G. González, "Gravitational Wave Astronomy", TDAG Astrophysics Seminar (2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vCTNuINq6o&t=4040s&ab_channel=CTMObservatory PyCBC, Free and open software to study gravitational waves, https://pycbc.org/​ K. Mack, "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)", Scribner (2020), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52767659-the-end-of-everything B. Allen and J. D. Romano, "Detecting a Stochastic Background of Gravitational Radiation: Signal Processing Strategies and Sensitivities", Physical Review D 59, 102001 (1997), https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9710117.pdf​ J. D. Romano and N. J. Cornish, "Detection Methods for Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Backgrounds: A Unified Treatment", Living Reviews in Relativity, 20:2 (2017), https://arxiv.org/pdf/1608.06889.pdf​ J. Baker, B. Brugmann, M. Campanelli, and C. O. Lousto, "Gravitational Waves from Black Hole Collisions via an Eclectic Approach", Classical and Quantum Gravity, Vol. 17, Number 20, L149 (2000), https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0003027.pdf​ J. Baker, B. Brugmann, M. Campanelli, C. O. Lousto, and R. Takahashi, "Plunge Waveforms from Inspiralling Binary Black Holes", Physical Review Letters 87, 121103 (2001), https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0102037.pdf​ J. Baker, M. Campanelli, and C. O. Lousto, "The Lazarus Project: A Pragmatic Approach to Binary Black Hole Evolutions", Physical Review D 65, 044001 (2005), https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0104063.pdf​ G. Hallinan, A. Corsi, et al., "A Radio Counterpart to a Neutron Star Merger", Science, Vol. 358, Issue 6370, pp. 1579-1583 (2017), https://arxiv.org/pdf/1710.05435.pdf​ H.-Y. Chen et al., "Distance Measures in Gravitational-Wave Astrophysics and Cosmology", Classical and Quantum Gravity, Vol. 38, Number 5, 055010 (2021), https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.08079.pdf​ B. Allen et al., "FINDCHIRP: An Algorithm for Detection of Gravitational Waves from Inspiraling Compact Binaries" Physical Review D 85, 122006 (2012), https://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0509116.p...​ K. Jani and A. Loeb, "Gravitational-Wave Lunar Observatory for Cosmology" (2020), https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.08550.pdf​
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    2 hrs and 16 mins

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